It’s been an eventful few days since my last post. The New York State Vintage Championship was held last weekend just up the road from where I live at MotoMasters MX in Mexico NY. Me getting the AT-1 running when I did was coincidental, but I was aware of the race, and was toying with the idea of either me or my son racing it in the hare scramble if I could get it to a suitable level of tune. Having it street legal made it easier to tune and confirm reliability. With the charging issue ironed out, and the burnt bulb replaced, my son put 5 miles on it, I came home from work and put 10 trouble free miles on it, then my son went back out and put another 5 miles on it before getting a flat tire. We were both satisfied with the reliability and performance. This was last Thursday, the race was Saturday morning. I had a knobby for the rear, but couldn’t find something suitable and cheap for the front so I left the universal tread on the front. I got home from work on Friday and my son had already begun getting ready to race. We changed the rear tire, put a high fender on the front, exchanged the muffler for a stinger (It has a tuned pipe of unknown make), removed some accessories and thought we were good. It was pouring rain and pretty dark when it was time for a test ride. James took it out in the yard and had it ripping around, loud as heck, sounded great. Then it stalled, we neglected to turn the petcock on. After turning the fuel on, we couldn’t get it to run right. Tried some things, eventually took the carb off took it apart, found some sediment, gumout everywhere, reassembled, back on the bike, got it running, back out in the yard, now it only runs with the choke on. Figured air leak, carb back off, couldn’t find anything obvious, took care installing the carb. It ran better, but it was late and the neighbors had already been terrorized enough, it’s very loud with the pipe on it, called it a night. Up early Saturday, waited as long as I could before firing, went up and down the road a couple times wide open, it felt and sounded pretty good. James had trouble restarting after stalling a couple times in the woods. The first time he got stuck in a mud hole almost up to the rear axle, stalled, and couldn’t get restarted, I got over to him, got the bike started, rode it out of the mud hole, and he got back on and continued. After a while, we couldn’t hear the distinctive exhaust note anymore, so I went out in the woods looking for him. No luck so back to the fence to wait. After a few minutes of waiting and no sign of him I called his cellphone (I told him to bring it with him) he answered and said he had stalled and couldn’t get it started. He was able to tell me where he was generally, so back into the woods to try to find him. I found him fairly quickly, he was with a couple track stewards, none of them was able to start it. I got it started fairly quickly wrung it out good, and told him to keep the revs up and use the clutch to keep it running. He took off and kept it going till he finished. This was the first race for either of us. The preparation, including all the help from this site, was very fun. I really appreciate you guys. Race day was also fun and very exciting. James was the only novice pre 1975 under 200cc, so he’s the state champion. The ten mile ride I took the Thursday before was very satisfying. The bike ran beautifully, it was really a joyful moment. I’m not sure what our next play is, my son and I would both like to race again, but I think we should find a more suitable bike, an MX 125 maybe. The fact that the AT-1 has a registration makes me want to do some paint work and other cosmetic things over the winter and sell it, but I do like riding it.
Thanks for reading.
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