Over to Phil.
Hiya, Phil here.
Thought I had better let you all know what's been happening since the last trip to Pendine Sands in May, and our great weekend at Prescott Festival.
Miki has pushed on hard with the development of his 650 bonnie, and is starting to get some results showing him which direction to pursue. After Prescott I set about putting some mods on the 350. I've fitted an oil cooler to help deal with the extra heat I expect to produce running on petrol with the new 28mm Mk2 concentrics. I starting testing this set up in the beginning of August and have managed to do 18 test sessions to set the carbs up, check some different ignition timings and experiment with gearing versus exhaust cam timing. This has been an ongoing saga but I think some results are starting to show at last. By the end of the first week of September I was getting regular 100mph runs.
And so to Elvington for the first time.
Both Miki and myself left separately eary on Friday 14th Sept. but the roads were really bad and it took around 10 hours to get there. We managed to get scrutineered before crashing out for the night.
I got out in one of the first sessions the next morning and did a two way run being timed on the flying quarter mile, flying kilometre and flying mile. My West to East run with the wind behind me produced an impressive 105.708mph with the return run a few mph slower. This would be my first Elvington record, beating Henry Cole's previous record by a good margin.
Sunday saw much of the same for me with another run over 105mph.
Miki started Saturday with a plug fouling problem but soon overcame that and by Sunday had established his own new record of over 116mph.
We both stayed on Sunday night and did a visit to the Elvington Air Museum the following morning which was well worth staying over for, it was fantastic. Traffic was much better for the journey home and with a short detour for Miki to pick up another 71 Triumph on the way, we still got home in much better time than on the way up. Both bikes were still in good condition so it was a quick turn around preparing for Pendine Sands the following weekend.
So after the previous weeks journey we both decided to leave early on the Friday for Pendine. Clear roads saw us both up there for tea-time. Saturday started quite wet and windy and the sand was not brilliant! The Straightliners team worked hard and managed to set up a half-mile run but the sand was soft and the rain kept coming. No-one was getting very good speeds and I only managed 78mph with Miki doing just over 90mph. As this was the first time they had run the half-mile at Pendine they still counted as new records!
We woke up on Sunday to the sound of heavy rain so hung fire until around 8am when the rain started to ease off. By 9am there were blue but blustery skies. Miki got down onto the sand first and gave me a call on the way to the start line warning me to stay well away from the seaward side as he nearly got stuck!
We both watched a bike do the first test run up the beach and the sand looked good. Miki's first run was in the high 90's and mine was in the low 90's. We both did a further 9 runs throughout the day and I eventually reached the 101mph mark with Miki getting just short of 110mph. It turned out nice again! We both came away from another fantastic weekend with two more records each!
Thanks Phil, and so to next year.
Me and Phil are taking the two Triumphs to Bonneville next year and we are going to use this blog to document the trip from beginning to end so watch this space as we will be starting the blog next week.
Cheers, Miki.
