'62 Norton in BEARS race at Mid Ohio, July 29, 2007

My 1962 Norton Commando powered Featherbed in AHRMA BEARS race at Mid Ohio on July 29, 2007. I recently picked up this onboard camera, and while it's not quite sorted out yet, it gives an idea of what a vintage race is like. I mounted it in the nose of my fairing by cutting a hole in the fiberglass. It shakes like mad and is out of alignment with the hole, and the recorder was wedged against my oil tank so every time I made a right turn it pressed on the input cable and messed up the image. So it goes.

This race took place at 8am Sunday morning, July 29, 2007 at Mid Ohio with AHRMA. I'm starting on the front row of the BEARS grid (BEARS stands for British, European, American Racing Series) on row 7. There were about 8 other BEARS riders. Gridded in front of us were 5 rows of the modern Triumph Thruxton class, which consisted of about 12-15 bikes. Behind us was the Formula Vintage grid, with about 10 bikes.

In this video you'll see Tim Joyce on a very fast Triumph T140 get a phenomenal start and slice right up through the Thruxtons. Ultimately Tim won the overall, meaning he passed ALL the bikes, not just the BEARS bikes. Tim is the fastest guy in AHRMA, for sure. Shortly after the start you'll see Greg Nichols in blue and white leathers come past me on a Rickman Triumph. I stayed with Nichols for a couple of laps but we were held up by some Thruxtons and Nichols was better in traffic, leaving me to fight them off myself. The podium results for BEARS were Joyce taking first, Nichols second, and I took 3rd.

At 4:45 you'll see Jay Springsteen come past me like a rocket on the stunning Hourglass Racing Harley XR750. Jay was in the Formula Vintage class who were gridded behind the BEARS class. A couple of other FVintage guys make it past as well, but I'm okay with that -- they're the fastest of the fast.

I hit about 8000rpm on the back straight a couple of times. My redline is set at 7200-7500, so I was pushing it. My gearing chart would put that at over 130+mph at 7500k.

Enjoy.

-Kenny Cummings
NYC
www.nycnorton.com

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Norton
• Commando
• Race
• AHRMA
• Featherbed
• BEARS
• Mid
• Ohio

[LoudValves]

best racing footage I've seen yet! look forward to more!

[hopper1]

Awesome video! You weren't kidding about Springsteen shooting by.

[critchley3819]

would you be OK telling me what cam and head work you have done, thanks.

[ukchris64]

SO you don't rate the new Thruxton then, were any of them modified?

[BILLJENNINGSII]

excellent !!!

[monkeys59able]

Good basic bare bones racing - I loved it !!

K O ( Palmerston North, NZ )

[feiler1007]

K--Raw Racing at it's best......Rock on

[junkduma]

Ace film Kenny!  Raced a Commando-Seeley myself for lotsa years. This makes me wanna get out there again....

[gaitkleefman]

Nice and a great sound

[Morrica]

Mate..I can't get over how good your bike sounds

[moisiemo]

Great stuff! The bike sounds nicely crisp

[kingcr4b]

I now Tim Joyce we visit him at his house, he is sponsored by D&D Cycles. And anyone could ask him do u know a 13 year old named Quentin Griffin, (i.e this is not my account this is mine and several classmates mine is kingcr3b)