Category: flat track

Spanish Flyer: A Honda CB1000R tweaked for the track

Post author By Chris Hunter
Post date March 23, 2019

For power junkies, the Honda CB1000R is one of the best roadsters on the market today. The build quality is superlative, the Fireblade-derived inline four pumps out a stonking 143 hp, and the Showa suspension is top-notch.

We’re on the fence when it comes to the ‘neo sports café’ styling though. So news of a custom competition to revamp the CB1000R piqued our interest at EXIF HQ. Dealer competitions are usually a bit hit-and-miss, but the standard is remarkably high in this one.

It’s run by Honda Iberia, and open to dealers in Spain, Portugal, and the Balearic Islands. Thirteen shops took up the challenge, and our favorite build is this flat track-inspired machine from Comercial Impala of Barcelona.

Impala is a ‘HondaONE’ dealer, a badge reserved for the very best concesionarios, and this custom will certainly bolster the reputation of their workshop.

“When they proposed that we customize a CB1000R, we had a lot of ideas immediately,” says Enric Ferreres, Impala’s commercial manager. “The bike is an incredible base. But we also had a limited budget. So we decided to build a motorcycle with only a few extras added. A flat track race bike was perfect.”

The budget for custom work was just €3,000—around $3,400. So a little ingenuity was required.

The Impala mechanics dismantled the original rear subframe and replaced it with a new one—designed in SolidWorks and made out of aluminum. “It’s shorter, lighter and more minimal than the original.”

All the subframe pieces were laser-cut and screwed together, with no welding required. Then, after checking that there was enough room for some of the CB1000R’s essential electrics, Impala crafted a tail and seat unit out of fiberglass.

The fiberglass tail was made to measure, respecting the original proportions of a typical flat tracker, and is a surprisingly good visual fit to the angular CB1000R tank. The one-piece unit screws directly to the new subframe.

The next job was to trim the wiring loom and remove any systems not required for the track. So it was goodbye to the traction control and ABS, the lights, the blinkers and the digital display.

The original bars were replaced by an oversized aluminum Jared Mees replica bend manufactured by the French specialist Neken. The left control buttons were binned, leaving only the start button on the right side of the bar.

The brakes had to stay, but the master cylinders (and hand levers) have been upgraded to Brembo components. In place of the headlight is a classic number plate, with laser-cut mounts again designed in SolidWorks for a factory-level fit.

Given the output of the stock engine, no substantial mods were necessary. But Impala have installed pod filters on custom mounts and an IXRACE exhaust system, deleting the catalytic converter. Interestingly, the CB1000R electronics handled the changes without any hiccups.

Impala have also swapped out the original Bridgestone S21 tires for more dirt-oriented Pirelli MT60s, and added custom fork protectors too—with brackets designed in CAD and using the mounting points of the original fender.

The icing on this particular cake is lustrous gold paint—a nod to the famous ‘Candy Gold’ seen fifty years ago on the grandfather of the CB series, the 1969 CB750.

But what we really want to know is: what’s it like to ride? “It’s awesome,” says Enric. “150 hp on the dirt track is crazy—and for expert riders only, jajaja!”

The good news is that Impala are probably going to produce a street version of this CB1000R, with all the legal niceties left intact. Now that could tip us over the edge to put the big inline-four in the EXIF garage.

Who else is feeling the vibe?

Honda Garage Dreams | Instagram | Honda Impala | Instagram | Images by Diego Bemúdez

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Noise Cycle’s rad Street Rod 750 tracker gets a revamp

Post author By Wesley Reyneke
Post date March 21, 2019

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
In the world of professional motorcycle racing, development is a constant grind.

Hooligan flat track racing is the same. But here, the upgrades are done by racers and builders on tight budgets. Not massive teams of engineers with eighteen-wheeler trucks full of SnapOn tools.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
So we’re fascinated by the way Scott ‘T-Bone’ Jones of Noise Cycles has rebuilt his fire-breathing Street Rod 750 tracker. It’s the same 2017-spec XG750M he raced with last year—but it’s evolved radically since then.

As the season ended, Scott and teammate Brandon ‘Gonz’ Gonzalez had a clear idea of how to build a better racer…so they did.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
“The concept for this year was to make a functioning bike,” Gonz tells us. “This meant making the bike narrower.”

“The last version paid homage to the XR1000, but in doing so the bike ended up wider than what was ideal to race with. The exhaust sat high and wide, to the point where it was uncomfortable to ride. That had to change.”

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
The initial idea was to build a new one-piece body, out of fiberglass. But after taking inspiration from pro flat track and supercross, the guys started wondering if they could simply adapt a set of motocross panels to fit the Street Rod.

“Our friends at SMCO happened to have a Husqvarna FC450, which is my favorite motocross bike” says Gonz. “So we borrowed their plastics to test fit.”

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
The fit, amazingly, was close to perfect. So Noise acquired their own set, and massaged it to fit—fabricating mounts to attach the panels to. Most of the cutting happened on the left, where some plastic had to be trimmed away to make space for the left cylinder head and exhaust header.

Scott then fabricated an aluminum fuel tank to hold just enough fuel for race runs. It attaches to the Street Rod’s backbone and the left side of the frame, with rubber grommets to dampen vibration. And yes, it took some crafty sculpting to utilize the maximum amount of space available.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
Seat specialists Saddlemen hooked Noise up with a new seat pad up top. And 270X designed, printed and applied a custom decal kit.

Scott and Gonz considered trimming the rear frame rails more (they’d been cut for last year’s build), but they decided to focus their attentions elsewhere. After all, they were building the bike up in a 4×8′ space they’d cleared in Scott’s home garage, wedged in between multiple other projects.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
Just a handful of mods stayed on from last year. Scott’s still running the same wheel combo: a 19” Sportster front wheel, with a 19” V-Rod front wheel adapted for the rear, fitted with a quick-change sprocket.

The engine hasn’t been touched much either, and still runs an S&S Cycle air cleaner and a Vance & Hines FuelPak3 tuner. And the cylinder heads are still flipped. Yes, you read that right: Scott went to considerable lengths last year to flip the heads, so that he could run a high, left-side exhaust without a crazy tight radius bends in the headers.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
But he hated burning his pants on the exhaust all the time, so he decided to change it. And since flipping the heads back was too much effort, he had S&S manufacture a custom system that would exit on the left, then shoot through to the right.

Gone is the Red Bull oil catch can that Scott dug out of a trash can and taped to his bike last year. A custom-made aluminum unit has replaced it. Other tweaks include an MX foot peg on the right, and a custom shifter setup on the left.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
The cockpit’s sporting Pro-Taper bars and a Pro-Taper clutch levers, a Motion Pro throttle and Scott grips. The rear brake’s been upgraded to a Lyndall Racing rotor and a Honda CRF master cylinder.

Scott’s Street Rod is also sporting an all-new and vastly improved suspension setup. Up front, he’s got the same S&S Cycle triples and risers the Indian factory team runs, with a custom stem.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
They hold a set of Yamaha R6 forks, making the front end lower, lighter and tunable. There’s a pair of 15” custom valved RWD shocks out back.

Geometry-wise, the Street Rod now has a slightly shorter wheelbase and a touch less rake. And with narrower bodywork and a longer seat, Scott can use a lot more body English. It makes for a much more responsive bike and a much happier racer.

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles
It’s also one of the most interesting Hooligan bikes we’ve seen. You’d think MX plastics on a Harley-Davidson would look weird—but it works surprisingly well.

Maybe we’ll see more of this style out on the track…

Noise Cycles Instagram | Photos by Brandon ‘Gonz’ Gonzalez

A Street Rod 750 Hooligan racer by Noise Cycles

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This scary TZ750 flat track racer is also street legal

Post author By Chris Hunter
Post date February 5, 2019

When we were talking to Brad Peterson about his XR750 street tracker a month ago, he let slip that he also had a TZ750 in his garage. And it too was street legal.

An explosive Yammie two-stroke with classic flat track good looks is too hard to resist, so we just had to show it. But we’re not sure if we want to ride it: Brad may have balls the size of church bells, but we don’t.

The TZ750 was one of the most extreme flat track racers of all time: it was banned after one race win in the mid 70s, and Kenny Roberts would hit 145mph going down the straights.

Steve Baker was another rider who wrestled with the TZ750. “One of my buddies showed me a picture of Steve Baker’s original dirt tracker, and said that a TZ750 would make a crazy street tracker,” Brad recalls. “That one picture, which is still pinned to my garage wall, started this adventure.”

This TZ750 is built around a replica of a Champion Racing frame. And it’s not any old replica: the original Doug Schwerma design has been replicated and built by Jeff Palhegyi, a man with a very solid reputation in the twin worlds of motorsport and Yamaha tuning.

“I don’t have enough luck to ever come by one of the original six Champion-framed TZs,” Brad admits. “So putting together a replica is as good as it’s going to get for me.”

Nestling in that frame is a 1977 TZ 750D motor built by Scott Guthrie Racing, a company that has set over 380 land speed records. (This particular TZ motor owns several records itself, in other vehicles.)

The ‘D’ spec motor got a 30 horsepower boost over its three predecessors, and in stock formed pushed out 120 hp. This one has been outfitted with Lectron carburetors and has been gas flowed and tuned specifically for street use.

Those glorious expansion chambers are again Jeff Palhegyi’s work. He’s topped them off with a pair of tiny mufflers from TZ Mike.

“I’ve found you can’t sneak around on it much,” Brad says. “It’s an angry beast of a bike that makes an enormous amount of noise and leaves a trail of two-stroke smoke like you can’t believe.”

Like many flat track machines, this TZ750 is running Yamaha YZF-R6 forks, mated to the frame with custom triples. An R6 donated its brakes too—including the front caliper, and the front rotor (with a custom disk carrier).

Santa Fe Motors supplied the 19-inch rims (shod with Dunlop rubber) and there’s a quick-change rear hub, alongside another R6 caliper and rotor and Race Tech shocks.

The bars are from Flanders, one of the oldest names in the bending fraternity, and are graced with brake and cylinder masters from Brembo. The Scitsu tach and temperature gauges are original, though.

The discreet lighting from Baja Designs is required to make the TZ street legal. “It’s a total loss electrical system,” Brad explains. “Can’t remember when I charged the battery last. Crazy long life!”

The low-profile bodywork is by First Klass Glass. Brad painted it himself—in the Yamaha Canada red colors of #32 Steve Baker, of course.

“It’s legit street legal,” he adds. “Title, lights and all. Race bikes and motors are originally sold without titles, so I spent a lot of time working through the processes to get it to the street.”

The TZ750 has no starter, but it will bump start in less than six feet. “Once I figured out the right spark plug to use, it’s crazy how easy it starts. Originally Yamaha recommended two plugs—one for warming up and a second for racing—but I found a happy medium.”

The TZ might be legal to ride on the street, but the power band is akin to a light switch. “When the revs hit about 7,000, it lights the back tire up violently—and at the same time lifts the front wheel, pulling hard all the way to 11,000,” says Brad.

Brad lives in the same town as Steve Baker, who’s still a regular at the small local flat track. And there are plans in the works to get Baker and the TZ750 together in Canada on a 1/2 mile this summer.

We reckon Baker is a brave man, but it should be epic.

Images by John Meloy and Pierre Robichaud.

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Yamaha Faster Sons: Chapter Two

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date November 2, 2015

Yamaha’s ‘Faster Sons’ is different from the Yard Built program. ‘Faster Sons’ is about drawing from Yamaha’s rich heritage and making full-performance motorcycles with state-of-the-art components, and then drawing from those builds to produce the most stylish and best performing production motorcycles on the market.

Kicking off back in June with Shinya Kimura’s XSR700, ‘Faster Sons’ looks to be involving only the best of the moto-customizing best. Recruiting Roland Sands as the second builder to tackle the sport heritage segment, Chapter Two is already vastly different but equally as impressive as Chapter One.

Enjoy the video above and stay tuned for more to come from Yamaha’s Yard Built program and ‘Faster Sons’.

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Cruiser Custom: Kawasaki Vulcan S

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date September 30, 2015

When Kawasaki proposed the idea of doing a custom Vulcan S, we immediately knew we wanted to be a part of the project. After talking with them for a while about the limitations of the project (virtually none) we started to thinking about the direction of the build and the fabricators that we would like to get involved.

Motorcycle Cruiser is based out of lovely Southern California, which puts us right in the heart of custom motorcycle culture, and within arms reach of many awesome fabricators. None of whom fit the direction we sought to go quite so well as the familial building team from Long Beach: Suicide Machine Co.. Brothers Aaron and Shaun Guardado both build and race flat track machines out of their shop, but there is not much that they can’t do. The skilled duo has tackled a vast array of projects, all tied together by their token aesthetic that puts performance first.

We can’t give away too much about what we are planning to do with this bike, but know that it will have a completely different silhouette which wouldn’t feel too out of place on a certain type of race track.

Check out the video below of their Hot Bike Speed and Strength build to get an idea of the sort of thing they do.

For more information on Suicide Machine, visit their website SuicideMachineCompany.com

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Roland Sands Geico Chief Flat Tracker

Post author By staff
Post date September 29, 2015

Leave it to Roland Sands to corrupt a sophisticated bagger, an Indian Chieftain, and turn it into a stripped-down, no-frills, powerful, dirt-churning hooligan bike.

Roland looked at an Indian Chieftain – a smooth-handling, powerful bagger with a full fairing, comfortable ride and hard saddlebags – and he saw the soul of a flat-tracker. Roland and his crew dismantled the Indian Chieftain, fabbed, bent, welded, and tuned, and out rolled the GEICO 75th Anniversary Sturgis Buffalo Chip Custom Indian Chief Racer.

Roland Sands Design Geico Indian Chief Flat Tracker

The bike made a clean debut on Aug. 2 on-stage at the Buffalo Chip. Tens of thousands of concert-goers roared their approval as Roland fired up the bike’s fire-breathing, modified Thunder Stroke 111 V-Twin. The bike made its proper debut a few nights later amid a pack of fellow raw race bikes at the half-mile track in Rapid City, S.D. That’s where Roland got to run the bike in the Inaugural Hooligan Half Mile. He didn’t win, but then again, everybody won because here was a high-end custom bike bankrolled by corporate sponsors, and those sponsors said, “Hell, yeah!” to the idea of Roland running the his latest masterwork on the Black Hills dirt track. That’s where the bike belonged, what it was built for, so it was a proper baptism by dirt.

Here’s some background on what Roland envisioned, why he took the Indian Chieftain so far from its original purpose, and what work went into this amazing bike.

A Flat Track Bike
As Roland looked at the new generation of Indian Motorcycle models, he saw the race bikes of the past that built the brand’s performance heritage on race tracks of every type, especially flat tracks.

“I really like to look at the history of racing and much of that started in the dirt,” Roland said.

“The classic silhouette of rigid flat track racers is one of my favorite looks. De-raked frames, short wheel base, short forks, fat tires, and a bike stripped of all except what’s necessary. It doesn’t get much better than that… It just felt right.”

“Plus, there were flat track races we could actually run the bike. It’s safe to say this is the only one-off anniversary build to get raced at an AMA National.”

Modified? Oh, Yeah.
This is truly a one-off, hand-built custom race bike. Sure, it rolled into the Roland Sands Design (RSD) shop as an Indian Chieftain bagger, but the cutting, stripping, and modifying started the instant the bike went up on the lift.

“Outside of the cases and engine internals, I’d say we modified just about everything,” Roland said. It’s a “hand-built frame from the ground up. We used the gas tank from the original Indian Chieftain but cut it all up to make saddle tanks and bent the backbone of the frame to roll with the tank.”

“We built the rear fender and mounts, number plates, modified the Paughco Leaf fork for aluminum uprights, and matched the rear fender struts. We used our new flat track race wheels for rolling hardware with a crazy vented rear rotor from Lloyd Brothers Racing and Dunlop’s new flat track tires. We fabbed up a custom exhaust too – there’s so much to list on this thing.”

Note that those new Dunlops are branded with the Indian Motorcycle script logo for a total custom treatment.

Some of the components might make their way into the RSD retail catalog eventually, but for now, they’re one-offs.

“Currently, you can’t buy anything” that’s on the bike, Roland said. “It’s all test product and prototype stuff, but if people are really interested in the stuff, we’d love to produce it.”

“The clarity cam and primary cover, floorboards, intake, and ignition cover – and the flat track race wheels – are all potential future products.”

A huge reveal and then you chose to race it?
Custom bikes are not cheap, which means GEICO spent some serious coin in commissioning this racer. Yet GEICO let Roland take it to the dirt track almost immediately after it was built.

Roland Sands Design Geico Indian Chief Flat Tracker

“GEICO is rad,” he said with a smile. “Their guys, Kelly and Jeremy, made the process and the launch easy and non-corporate. I think traditionally they’ve reached for that TV bike audience and this bike is aimed at core riders. The fact it touches on the historical significance of Sturgis, flat track racing, and the return of Indian Motorcycle is a combination that makes the bike very marketable for GEICO to a different audience.”

Once the bike was built, Roland took it for a stealthy and quick spin plus a photo shoot in California, and he put a few miles on it outside of Sturgis.

“I rode the bike down the flood control in Long Beach, and on a dirt back road in Sturgis for about 20 minutes prior to revealing the bike.”

“Revealing the bike at the Buffalo Chip with GEICO and Indian Motorcycle for the 75th anniversary in front of a packed house of screaming bikers, it was intense,” he recalled. “We really wanted to deliver GEICO something different from what they were used to with the bikes they’ve commissioned in the past. The GEICO Indian Chief Racer was that bike, and it was really a solid moment for our entire crew. And with it being my 25th anniversary going to Sturgis, it was extra special.”

Then it was time to gear up and hit the track.

“We got a few test laps [at Rapid City], then right into a full-bore Hooligan race at the half mile.”

On a new special custom-built bike?
“It maybe wasn’t what you would normally do to a one-off corporate 75th anniversary build for a company like GEICO, but they loved it,” he laughed. “I had the confidence in the design and my crew’s skills to put my ass as well as the bike on the line in front of the AMA national crowd and live TV audience on Fans Choice TV. And as things work out sometimes, it worked out.

“I didn’t win, but I’d say we had a solid mid-pack finish and the bike worked pretty well. Mainly, the bike rolled off the track still on two wheels, which was the main priority.”

For more information on Indian Motorcycle and their bikes, visit IndianMotorcycle.com

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Hell on Wheels: Hot August Nights

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date September 1, 2015

Hell on Wheels puts on a few events a year, and they’re always an absolutely filthy good time. From the Halloween Hill Climb, to the Scrambles, to this here old Hot August Nights.

Every event HOW puts on is centered around having a good time. It’s goal #1.

Anyone who wants to can race, as long as you can put up the small entry fee. It’s the sort of event where the minibike class was the most crowded. These guys are notorious for their “Run What Ya Brung” class races, which are always entertaining to say the least.

Even if it has gotten much more crowded in the last few years, the spirit of the events remains the same. Racers from all over come to the Hell on Wheels events for some light hearted fun, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going all-out when it comes their turn to get slideways. There were more pros than ever this year, making my job as a spectator that much more fun. Being out in Perris, CA we were all very thankful that most of the racing took place once the sun had gone down.

If you havent had the chance to get out to a Hell on Wheels event, do yourself a favor and go to HellonWheelsMC.com for details on the next one.