Drag Triumph 1985

I was going through some old pics last night and found a couple of pictures of my old Triumph Drag Bike. It started life as a 1969 T120. Sonny Routt helped with tech on the engine and a lot of his custom built engine parts like rods, cams, pistons, cylinders. The heads were done at RPM Machine and dual plugged with the center plugs being for a Honda CT70 (I dont remember the number) Had two Accel Harley coils and all 4 plugs fired at once. We put 2 Mikuni 40mm flat slide carbs on it with velocity stacks. The tire was a VW retread with a super sticky compound . . you could throw a rock at the tire and make it stick. The front end was off a Honda Hawk and we put Tomaselli clip ons on it. We started with a 5 speed gear box but ended up back to a 4 speed because 2nd gear kept busting all the teeth off it.

I had one hell of a good time with that bike . . . . Used to shoot flames about two feet out of the pipes. I twisted the spokes out of the rear rim more than once . .

That's one wild ride! Cool!! So were you known as Smylee D back then instead of BoogerDave?

Nope . . the bar that sponsored us was called Smylee D's. My other sponsor was D&D Cycles in Pensacola . . . yep same one that Molinoman worked for.

The guy that is standing by the bike in one picture was my partner in the bike shop.

Oh . . . I forgot a couple of things . . . it had a Pingel air shifter on it and was a 850 that was .30 over . . . guess that made it pretty close to a 900.

Dave,

Most excellent, remind me to buy you a couple of cold ones so you can relax and reveal all at RAAIV....................Deb won't mind she'll be out and about on her Speedy!

Whatever happened to it boogerdave? And how many trophies I er mean hardley try you?

I've seen a couple of drag-race Bonnies on YouTube. Pretty wild sound, to hear one of those things taching 10,000rpm+!

Very cool, boogerdave! What times were you running?

Started out in the low 8's . . 8.25 (1/8th mile) and ended up after a LOT of tinkering and tweaking on gearing, sprockets and tire sizes with a best run of about 7.90. It was great times back then . . I was beating the 650 ninjas with a twin on heads up.

We actually built the thing to originally to do sand drags at the local toys for tots bike fun day. There was a sportster we wanted for lunch. He had won for the previous two years. That was with a different motor . . stock bottom and trans with a 825 Morgo kit. Had a knobby dirt bike tire on it. That version about killed me. Ever tried to race a bike like that laying down with clip-ons in dirt? Never did beat the sporty. . . on dirt, we did later on the track though.

Looks like it has an early Honda Front wheel, disc and caliper...

Nice display of safety gear, you wouldn't get on the track like that today. How did we all live in those days without big brother keepin us safe. The tennis shoes add a real nostolagic look

Sidecar Flip said:

Looks like it has an early Honda Front wheel, disc and caliper...

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Exactly . . . 450 Honda Hawk to be exact. I went through piles of rear wheels to try and find something to get rid of the rear spoke wheel . . never could match anything up.

Gunshots said:

Nice display of safety gear, you wouldn't get on the track like that today. How did we all live in those days without big brother keepin us safe. The tennis shoes add a real nostolagic look

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Track required Snell 80 full face at the time and you had to wear at least a leather jacket and jeans . . . what more did you need? **** sure not like that now.

Baggage1 said:

Whatever happened to it boogerdave? And how many trophies I er mean hardley try you?

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We had transmission issues and never could get the inner clutch hub to hold on to the mainshaft . . kept spinning the thing loose and breaking the woodruff key . . I ended up welding the inner hub to the shaft. Only problem with that was that every time we busted a gear, we had to cut the shaft and put in a new one. Pretty pricey after the first 2 or 3 shafts at about 300 bucks a crack. We had planned on having splines cut on the hub and shaft but never got that far. I sold the bike to another triumph enthusiast who put the engine in his street bike (hardtail) . . he died in a bike wreck (on a harley) years later and his sister ended up with the bike . . wouldnt sell it and had NO IDEA what it was. I ended up racing a 650 Nighthawk . . less maintenance and faster. Just not as interesting.