anyone got pics fro bendigo nats ? approx 1997 ?

[YSS]

Freaky , the team you are thinking of is the AH racing team , which we worked for for years .That consisted of Andy Haydon , Andy Caldecott , Fredy Ritchards  and Jason Dunstall. They all rode at Port Pirie . Have you been living under a rock until now , or are we just getting so old ?

[Freakshow]

Hey Freaky, AH Racing is Andy Haydon. How long have you been in S.A.? I'm surprised you hadn't heard of AH Racing before.

nah i rode a  CR 125 when i was a kid for a while then went to Road racing amoungst other things, had a fall out over MA costs to race and never rode again after wining 99 superlight state titles and guys started cheating putting in CR80 gearboxes.

then in 06 did a open day at a local dirt track and though geeze i can do this,  Last year was my first year racing a pre 75's i bought one to race now i have 15 of the old things.

I know the names but they werent in my circles i moved in.  All the others guys from what i can tell who rode over the years all come and go,  last year i won the 250 vmx state titles but i have no idea where all the good riders went and i cant say 10 guys really is a state title, seems they ride one year, rest for a few, ride the next, which is why im doing the DT series at least you get 5 rounds other wise the MA licence is not worth it for 1 pissy round per year.  maybe im 10 years to late, but it seems all the talent has moved on. 

MAybe if im lucky some of the guys will be coming back to the sport and i can see how its done, there are rumours that some DT guys are back this year, so hopefully i get pooned by some guns this year as last year we started with 12 rider in the series and buy the end of the year we had 6 ( the other werent winning so they gave up)  again i came 2nd i the open class and 2nd in the 250cc for the year but i dont feel thats a true racing benchmark, and nothing against those guys, and they have been racing for 10 years or so, but still that class of field or size really to me dont rate as a benchmark of your skill sets or a true title.  I mean first year in a sport on new/old untested bikes to finish in that position has me scrating my head going, i think i missed all the good riders.  hopefully down the track when i can actually get off my arse and set these bikes up properly and get a few rides in on them i can come and do so interstate meets and see what really constutites a compeditive sport, i expect to be running last at a decent interstate meet unless they have the same situation going on there.

I am in too minds cause at the end of the DAy its always been who has been racing on the day is the winner full stop, because no other pricks come out shouldnt lessen the value as you are the compeditor and on the day you won, but its a bit like the rossi, dooan, schawtz, sheene etc etc on the day if you lined them up you only have one winner, and if they competed in differant eras then are they truly champs as maybe they dind'nt face real compeditors...... bit of a chicken and the egg that one

kinda makes me think about the old thread where have al the old boys gone ? 

[firko]

DAVID FOOTNER. It came to me in bed last night.
Yeah Freaky, I live in NSW and I knew that AH was Andy Haydon. A croweater like you should have known that as Haydon is an all time South Aussie legend. Give yourself an uppercut! His dices with Andy Caldecott at Pirie were brilliant.

Jason Dunstall was racing the quickest Elsinore I've seen at the Pirie Nats. I looked all over it for something illegal but couldn't find anything except a possible dicy reed block that looked like a Yamaha MX item. It was too fast for my liking! Is Freddy Richards still around Walter? He and his mate Clarkey were the biggest party animals I've seen in the sport since Paul Chippendale dropped out of sight! I heard that Clarkey died but I'd reckon Freddy could still beat blokes a third of his age both on the track and in the beer tent. That old party boy could sure ride.

RE: those thermalflows on Footners Yamaha. I'll bet you Walter had given them a going over. He helped a lot of the South Aussie blokes back then, as he still does today.

[YSS]

Fast Freddy lives in Murray Bridge and does a bit of touring  and offroading , Clarky used to drop in occasionally  but then moved to his daughter in Canberra  after a few hospital stays . Its a about 12 months since I have spoken to him , but I think his party days are over now.

[Freakshow]

but he went by the name tom well thats what i was calling him, surely we can just look up the old riding number

[firko]

If the blokes name is Tom we may be thinking of different people. All I know is that Dave Footner rode and won on a very fast MX Yamaha at both the Port Pirie and Ravenswoon Nats. Find those issues of ADB and the mystery will be solved.

This has bought up an interesting point that often goes untouched. When you are buying a bike it's always a good idea to find out as much about the bikes history and it's previous riders. Quite often bikes have some very interesting history despite how ordinary they appear. You should have spent more time talking to the bloke and noting what he had to tell you about the bike rather than checking out if every nut and bolt is in place. Nut's and bolts are easily replaced but history cannot be repeated.

There were some really fast South Aussie vintage riders like..........
* Bob Vourmard from Port Pirie who rode CZs and a beautiful MK4 BSA Metisse. He was the man in over 50's and pre 70. He was in his 60's and rode like a teenager. He was usually the first bloke to clear a tabletop at a meeting.
*Andy Caldecott practically unbeaten in 10 years of vintageracing on deceptively stock TM Suzukis. He is sadly missed.
*Geoff Flink was another rocket fast racer from Pirie. He rode Maicos, especially a very trick 326cc missile.
*Andy Haydon didn't ride a lot of vintage but when he did he was as fast as Caldecott.
*Freddy Richards as I described earlier was very fast and aggressive. He rode a swag of MX Yamahas and was especially fast on his SC500.
Rob Tumes is actually from Broken Hill, NSW but does most of his racing in South Australia. He rides some very quick Kawasakis and had beaten all of the top blokes at one time or another but often crashes in silly places like he did at this years Coffs Nats.
There were many more, these blokes were just off the top of my head, but because the vintage sport has had noone driving it along for quite a while it all fell in a shit hole. If someone could do something positive down there I reckon many of the missing punters would return to the sport.

[firko]

Freaky...I may be reeeaaaly stretching it here but have you thought of ringing the bloke you bought it off to ask him all of these questions? It seems logical to me.

[Freakshow]

Yes i can still contact him and he wants to come along to a race meet when i have it up and running so thats easy to get the stories right, and i agree with you i always get the details, but its the checking i wanted to cover before i got too into the possible history.

ITS no big deal of who he was, it was more i wanted a second confirm on this bikes history, lots of folks tell me they had no 1 plates, or a bikes this and that, then you find out the story is a little off track.  I was hoping it was easy to recognise this bike as a winner from the 97/98 series and could collaborate the story.  thats when ill go back to him with a tell me more about its Patina  . 

The reason i spent my time looking at the bike was from experiance  ( i used to buy S/h stock for a shop) you got to look at it yourself, talk is cheap and the times i have looked at bikes and when you pull the head off to find that standard bore ends up being a sloppy 4th over is far to frequent.  this guy had another guy do all the spanner work and he wasnt sure whaT WAS DONE TO IT, hence why i wanted a good look at what was what rather than a story parade, if it was a factory YZ i may have changed my approach, but being a mxer ( as you say the holden belmont) history was secondry to mechanicals and value for money.

Ill suss him out again, like i said i was kinda just looking for a heads up if the story gelled with anyone.  ill call him sometime and get the story straight, and he must have pictures if he rode it to a national title.

[Freakshow]

Ok WHO OUT THERE IN mAGAZINE COLLECTION LAND HAS COPIES OF adb MAG ?  WHICH ISSUE would we be looking for ? the month after the meeting ?