Hog Wild update

News about sidecars competing in the Dakar Rally and other enduro related items

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Scott
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Re: Hog Wild update

Post by Scott »

My ribs are recovering well, and I just got the frame bent back to normal. So, I just have to put a new radiator and fan on, give my body another two or three weeks, and we'll be ready to get back out there.

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fletch

Re: Hog Wild update

Post by fletch »

come- on Scott I'm a passenger so I prefer the 'Pure Hell' so it'll have to be the Baja if we come! besides we lost a good mate some time back that was out there playing in your desert when he got run over by some mexicans in a truck.
Still, if he hadn't gone he would have always wondered, just like all of us adventure bike riders.
If you really want to come down for the safari keep in touch and we'll find a way- I always believe in serindipity- you know - think about it long enough and magic happens type shit.
We also have a race to the sky type event in NZs south island that you could look at while down here. Check that out.
cheers/Fletch
wintsoz
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Re: Hog Wild update

Post by wintsoz »

Hi Scott & Fletch

Yes there has been an outfit finish an Australian Safari back in 1996 Adelaide to Townsville on a Kwaka 750 4 (factory frame ?) with passenger. The team were regulars in the 24hour trial in South australia in the 80s & 90s as well

On desert races - we are getting together a heap of sidecars for the Finke desert race 2010 mainly from South Oz. this is a 2 day race Starting from Alice Springs 220km to Finke then return the next day. www.finkedesertrace.com.au/

Another Enduro coming up on 11 & 12 of july is the 24 hr Trial based in the Barossa Valley South Oz attracts 30 - 40 sidecars every year - www.24hrtrial.com/
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Re: Hog Wild update

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fletch wrote:come- on Scott I'm a passenger so I prefer the 'Pure Hell' so it'll have to be the Baja if we come!
When I say "pure hell", that is relative to the typical tough time that passengers go through. A rough motocross or a 4 hour enduro race is hard enough. Have you ever ridden as passenger for 32 hours straight? Then on top of that, in Baja the terrain is so beat up from the buggies and trucks and many years of racing that 1 hour is already really hard for a passenger. In our Baja races, it is allowed to have a large team of riders that switch off through the race. Almost all solo riders switch between three or four riders through a long race. When I did Baja last year, I drove the full distance, but I had three passengers. Each one was completely exhausted from riding just 1/3 of the race (about 10 hours each). The Swiss team (with Dakar experience) had no extra passengers, and went only about 1/3 of the way before the passenger had to stop. I've raced a lot of years in a lot of places, mostly as passenger, and I still was surprised how tough it was in Baja. There may be a Superman that can passenger over 30 hours on tough terrain, but you should probably consider a backup plan just in case!
fletch wrote:besides we lost a good mate some time back that was out there playing in your desert when he got run over by some mexicans in a truck. Still, if he hadn't gone he would have always wondered, just like all of us adventure bike riders.
Sorry to hear about that. But it's pretty common in Baja to have locals driving their car backwards ON the race course DURING the race. I saw it last year myself. And every year there are stories about bad accidents like this. People die every year, especially crew members and spectators.
fletch wrote:If you really want to come down for the safari keep in touch and we'll find a way- I always believe in serindipity- you know - think about it long enough and magic happens type shit.
That’s how I got to Dakar the first time. It hasn’t been working so well since then, but I’ll keep dreaming!
fletch wrote:We also have a race to the sky type event in NZs south island that you could look at while down here. Check that out.
I looked at that years ago when I was racing Pikes Peak. Seems like a cool race, though kind of short.
wintsoz wrote:On desert races - we are getting together a heap of sidecars for the Finke desert race 2010 mainly from South Oz. this is a 2 day race Starting from Alice Springs 220km to Finke then return the next day. http://www.finkedesertrace.com.au/

Another Enduro coming up on 11 & 12 of july is the 24 hr Trial based in the Barossa Valley South Oz attracts 30 - 40 sidecars every year - http://www.24hrtrial.com/
Feel free to use this section of the forum to inform us about these events. Those are the types of races that this Dakar / Rally / Enduro forum was made for!
fletch

Re: Hog Wild update

Post by fletch »

Hi again Scott- thanks for letting us use your forum and it's obvious that your forum skills outshine mine.
I didn't realise you had been a passenger, my respect for you goes up a notch or two. I was 'taking the piss' a little as we say down here when I said we would only come for the Baja- it sounds too tragic to contemplate this late in life though if you need an experienced passenger with a tough head give me a call. My respect for your passenger(s) has also gone up a notch.
Like my compatriot says, we have a 24hr trial here that you should come and try and then stay for the Safari. Your outfit would be an outstanding showpiece for displays and though it's a left hand driver, it would still be an exceptionally good thing to have at the Safari. Let the negotiations begin. I'm sure VROD need some publicity down under.
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Re: Hog Wild update

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Next weekend I'll be going out for another pre-run of my latest rally training route. This is in the huge desert region between Death Valley (California) and Las Vegas (Nevada). The desert goes on for hundreds of kilometers in all directions, and there's all kinds of wild terrain out there, from -100m to +2500m elevation (part of Death Valley is below sea level). Most of the dirt roads and trails are open for riding, as long as you have a proper license plate. So we have great fun exploring these areas and setting up routes for our rally navigation training. We gernerally ride about 250km per day while pre-running because we have to stop a lot to make notes and correction in the roadbook. We ride closer to 500km per day in the real event.

Here's a video showing the places we'll be going. This is a collection of aerial images made from Google Earth while I was planning the routes. In most images you can see the road or trail that we'll be riding. Some of it is pretty difficult to go though on the sidecar, but those are usually the parts I like the best.
Video 1

And a little sidecar action video from our last pre-run:
Video 2
Plus more action on the route, though the sidecar is behind the camera bike this time:
Video 3
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Re: Hog Wild update

Post by mike »

hey scott,(and rien) a happy new year(and the rest of the forum to)howe did the last run go......i hope no broken parts on your body or sidecar greating from the netherlands mike
http://spaces.msn.com/members/Mad-Monk-Animal/ for photo's that i've taken with my cellphone(gsm)
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Re: Hog Wild update

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mike wrote:howe did the last run go......i hope no broken parts on your body or sidecar greating from the netherlands mike
Happy New Year!

At the moment I'm watching Dakar on TV, wishing I could be there. Last year I went down to Argentina/Chile and chased the race as a spectator on a street bike. That was fun, and a good learning experience, but the real goal is still to race it again on the sidecar.
Chasing Dakar 2009 in Argentina, amazing crowds:
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Since my last post I've been out riding a couple of times. Couldn't get a passenger for one of the rally pre-runs, so I had to learn how to ride 2 wheels. I haven't been on a 2-wheeled dirtbike in over 10 years!!

Making the rally routes, sometimes there are special challenges:
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Clearly I haven't learned how to "ride" this thing yet!
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Finally, we completed making the routes and roadbooks for about 800km of training rides. Here are some pics from the training event in November, back on the sidecar!
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Our next ride will be between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, probably in February. I'm making a new rally training ride all the way around the Grand Canyon. If things go as planned, it will start and finish near Las Vegas. I think it will be 7 days, around 3000km long, 95% dirt roads and trails (5% tarmac), often on the edge of the canyon where you could ride right off the edge if you wanted. It will go into very remote hard to get to areas where very few people go. I expect it will take a year to complete all the planning and pre-running before we have the real event. Right now I'm doing a lot of "flying around" on Google Earth to find the best places to go.

Our next race is the Mexican 1000, which is an "easy" version of the Baja 1000, April 28 - May 2.
www.norra.com
We're doing the Mexican 1000 as a practice and learning ride before the next Baja 1000. I don't know the Baja (Western Mexico) area very well, so this is a chance to learn about it while having a good time in a no-pressure fun race. There probably won't be another sidecar there, so for us it will be more of a fun survival adventure, though if we can pass some buggies and 2-wheelers we'll definitely twist the throttle a bit more to do it! But even though it's just a "fun" race, it's still around 1500km long, so it won't be easy on the sidecar.

In November we'll be racing the Baja 1000. This year it goes from the top of Baja all the way to the bottom. Last time we raced it, the course was a loop all around the top of Baja, so we didn't get to see the whole region. The original race was always from top to bottom, so this year we get to experience the "real" Baja 1000. It should take us about 40 hours start to finish if we don't have too many problems, and if I can stay awake that long.

Map from 2007 Baja 1000:
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Re: Hog Wild update

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We just completed racing the NORRA Mexican 1000 Rally. This was a 3 day 1061 mile (1708km) desert race from the top to the bottom of Baja, Mexico. Navigation was by a combination of roadbook and GPS.

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My passenger was Kevin Anderson, who has been riding with me on and off for a couple of years. TV interview, Kevin and me:
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One other sidecar, a Ural, was entered. They had problems early on and we never saw them after the start. They completed the first day, but I think they broke down on day 2 and were out. I’m not sure what went wrong.

The sidecar, before the race:
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Dash instruments, for navigation:
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The roadbook:
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We had a lot of mechanical problems, but kept fixing and moving forward, and made it the whole way. On day 1 I think we finished 24th overall out of about 70 starters. There was a mix of very fast dirt sections, moderately rough dirt sections, and paved liaisons. There was nothing nearly as bad as what we saw in the Baja 1000 2 years ago. On day 2 we set a new personal best speed of 104mph (167kph) at one point. On day 3 we had a fuel delivery problem right before the start, and lost 2 hours getting that fixed. In the end we finished 31st overall, which I think is pretty good for a sidecar. It was a really fun event with lots of big names and some fantastic classic vehicles competing.

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Malcolm Smith standing on the sidecar after the finish. He told us we were fast !!!
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Here are the mechanical problems we had, in order, plus the solution:

Day 1...
-Lost wired power to GPS. Ran on internal batteries remainder of race.
-Broke roadbook holder mount. Fixed with bungees for remainder of day, then made new mount for Day 2&3.
-Lost rear brake pressure. See fixes below.
-Broke passenger grab bar. Welded up at end of day.
-Broke bungee that holds down spare parts backpack. Installed new one.
-Wore all teeth off chain tensioner sprocket. Ran as-is remainder of race. Caused minor chain issues late in race.
-Broke rear brake caliper at finish. Installed new one.
-Rear tire was low on pressure. Refilled each morning.

Day 2...
-Lost rear brake pressure right after the start. Never fixed.
-Lost fuel pressure from tank 2. Ran from tank 1, filling tank as often as possible. Never fixed problem.
-Destroyed rear brake caliper and disc. Removed caliper on course. Raced with no rear brake all of day 2 and day 3.
-Broke shaft on sidecar shock. Replaced with onboard spare shock immediately.

Day 3...
-No pressure from tank 1 fuel pump, just before the start. Installed kluge spare pump and hoses. Filled tank as often as possible. Sometimes stopped and siphoned fuel from tank 2 over to tank 1.

Despite all the mechanical problems, this was a good race for us. It was my first time seeing Baja all the way down. I’m interested in racing the Baja 1000 in November, which will follow a similar path, but often on much rougher roads. This race was a good “pre-run” for that much tougher Baja 1000.

Thanks to Mark, Charlie, Brian, Randy, Des, Seve, Joe, Russ, Antonio, and the rest of the gang for helping make this a successful race.

Our website: http://www.HogWildRacing.com
Official Mexican 1000 Rally website: http://www.norra.com
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Re: Hog Wild update

Post by Pascal »

Hi Scott!

Thanks for this interesting story and congrats for finsihing! It's nice to know, that you're still going strong! ;-)

Best wishes and greetings from Switzerland

Pascal & Silvia
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Re: Hog Wild update

Post by tom.lang »

hi there.
in reference to the Australian safari, it was my old man that completed it on an outfit and he certainly didn't do it by himself. he definately had a passenger and a mechanic/manager that helped out along the way. They rode a kawasaki 750 4 cylinder motor/wasp outfit on a budget. they kept moving and overcame the problems that they had, and finished. that was in 96 and no one else has yet... anything is possible, it just depends how much hard work you are willing to put in.
best of luck with dakar, would love to see you finish!
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