Photo courtesy of Cycle Guide magazine

On a fine, crisp morning in the spring of 1983, Ron Lawson and I climbed aboard two brand-new dirtbikes—a Honda XR350R and a Husqvarna 430WR—and headed for off-road Utopia. Our goal was to spend an entire day, from daybreak to dusk, riding the magnificent trails that lace through the Los Padres National Forest north of Los Angeles.

I was Editorial Director of Cycle Guide magazine (shut down more than 20 years ago) back then, and Lawson—currently the Editor of Dirt Bike magazine—was the Associate Editor, and we were testing those two bikes for an enduro comparison in the upcoming June issue. The trails on our route wended their way through beautiful green meadows and tree-lined single-tracks that eventually seesawed back and forth across a little stream more than a dozen times. Normally, the water in that crossing is only a few inches deep and maybe 20 feet wide; but we’d had an exceptionally wet winter, turning that “stream” into a small river. And it seemed like every time we crossed, it got wider and deeper. By about our sixth or seventh crossing, we were negotiating a raging river, the water burbling and careening like a miniature version of the Colorado River rapids.

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Well, now, here’s a quandary.

My buddy Mike Mosiman called me this weekend and said he’s thinking of selling his Triumph Scrambler because he’s got the hots for another BMW R1200GS. He rode his brother-in-law’s GS last week on a visit to California, and now he’s in love again. He must have a big GS, and nothing else will do. Which I can understand—these are great bikes, and I’ve only missed owning one myself through a combination of bad timing and cheaping out on something else.

Anyway, Mike’s Triumph Scrambler is nice. Typically, he’s thrown about $3000 in aftermarket parts at it. It has a complete Norman Hyde twin-muffler high-pipe exhaust system on it, better shocks, a cartridge emulator in the fork, better handlebars and upgraded dual-sport Avons. He even bought a Bonneville right sidecover and had it repainted with a “900 Scrambler” logo because the heat shield on the stock sidecover didn’t look right with the new pipes. The bike’s also rejetted and runs great. I’ve ridden it a couple of times, and it’s really dialed in.

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We hardly ever think of engines as structures, but we should. Imagine a classic transverse, inline-four-cylinder engine at high rpm. The two outer crankpins, numbers 1 and 4, are moving together, while the middle pair, 2 and 3, move together 180 degrees out of phase with them. Each cylinder’s part of the crankshaft is “balanced” at about 50 percent of the reciprocating weight—the weight of piston, rings, wristpin and the small ends of the connecting rods. Fifty percent of that weight is whirling around, generating a rotating imbalance at each crankpin. One instant, these forces are bending the ends of the crankcase down and lifting the middle up, and 180 degrees later, the reverse is happening.

Big deal—crankcases are rugged, right? Not as rugged as they look. In 1982 Rob Muzzy described cylinder base-gasket leakage that wouldn’t go away on his Kawasaki Z1-based Superbikes (that’s Eddie Lawson pictured above)—until he began using solid-copper base gaskets. Crankcase flex was no problem in normal street running, but at 10,250 rpm the engine forces nearly doubled—becoming strong enough to bend the crankcases, which caused the rubbing of the stock base gaskets up into little balls. Copper resisted this rubbing.

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Photo by Peggy Allen

Everyone needs a hobby, right? One that helps them relax and unwind from the frantic pace of life in The Big City. A little quiet time to reflect and contemplate one’s own navel.

For me, that hobby is the tranquil, soothing realm of sprint-car racing. What could be more calming than a couple dozen 900-horsepower, methanol-burning, wheelstanding, dirt-roosting, sideways-sliding, eardrum-rattling racecars battling wheel-to-wheel on a quarter- or half-mile dirt oval? Why, those things are so pacifying that it’s difficult to resist nodding off when watching them.

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