Normally March is hot and dusty. If we go on tour, we can often be found swimming during the day to cool off, sometimes wearing full riding gear. Not this week, this year.

Don and I needed to scope some tracks between Mitta Mitta and Omeo for the Blast to the Beach, so I drove to Omeo (1.5 hrs in the car), unloaded and rode another 70 k’s or so on the bike to meet him at Lightning Creek.

The route followed the GAR (Great Alpine Road), but to avoid some twisty bitumen around the Blue Duck I went via the Knocker. It’s above the snow line and remember how you can’t trust the weather in the high country?

Sunny in the valleys, raining in the mountains. As I had a long day ahead, I stopped early to fit the raincoat to prevent a wet uncomfortable day. Being a half - sucked - twistie, I had to be cautious.

The first 70 k’s was transport so if I got wet I would get cold. Once wet and cold it’s not much fun.

Along the way though, there were things to keep me warm. I must have just missed this tree falling as I’d seen a vehicle towing a horse trailer coming the other way not far back.

I had to fashion a little ramp from logs and branches to make it over this one. If I’d been riding the lithe 250 I might have had a go at jumping it and actually took a run up at it with the intention of doing that on the 450, but thoughts of stuffing it up and crashing, getting stuck under the enormous and heavy fuel tank caused a bout of pea - heart - syndrome. So at the last minute I gutted out and only rode onto the log, where I dismounted half way and rolled it over.

The dose of pea - heart was not unwarranted. Despite my usual state of preparedness, I was riding alone, which is in breach of my usual rule number one.

Sure, I had my mobile phone, but it was tuned to ‘won’t work here ‘cause no - one lives here so Telstra don’t care’.

My UHF in helmet comms set up was tuned to ‘big hills in the way in all directions and nobody can hear me’.

My GME Personal Locating Beacon was in my Camelbak, ready to spring into action in case of emergency - just needing someone conscious to set it off …………..

So I took it easy.

I caught up with Don at Lightning Creek and we set off on some cool tracks that don’t see much vehicular traffic. So much so that there was a giant toad stool farm in the middle of the track.

The normally very placid Lightning Creek was up due to the recent rain, but despite it’s 12 crossings it wasn’t too bad and we hardly got wet.

The tracks were in ace condition and some had seen a bulldozer recently. The Four Mile - Eight Mile tracks were just grouse, turned to Mega Loam.

Don turned up with a sad looking rear tyre and when he got stuck on a particularly steep and slippery hill we contemplated going the other way.

After hearing him bitch and moan repeatedly over the UHF, I went back to check out the commmotion. We swapped bikes, to give him a go on mine with a newish back tyre.

I rode his to the top and waited.

Not long after I heard more bitching and moaning, so back down I went to see if my bike was still in one piece. After being told to harden the f&%k up, he pulled it together and rode his bike up easily.

Despite the impasse, he later declared that track to be possibly the best track he had ever ridden. Big call, but it was way cool.

Later on we checked out the Mitta river near Omeo, which was in flood and a dirty brown colour.

We rode on to Omeo and met up with a young bloke called Arty, who had offered to show us some cool tracks around Omeo. He was a great guide and was fast, despite starting and finishing with a fully flat rear tyre.

Some of Arty’s tracks were a little overgrown and rutted from the rain.

We cruised over to the Blue Duck via some back tracks and checked out our lodgings for night one of the Blast to the Beach. The place is being remodelled by new owners Mike and Lana and is looking way better than before.

250 odd K’s and the day was done, with Don having to cruise back via the Omeo Highway and me to Omeo. It was time well spent though and both the Yack to Omeo and Blast to the Beach tours are shaping up to be Epics.

If you’re coming on one of these, don’t be fooled, they are both long and arduous rides. Longer than any of our previous adventures with plenty of challenging terrain. Start training and include some 200 km plus rides into your regime.

I accept that many of you blokes are expert tool users and don’t need advice on their use. I mean, Wayno is known as the Toolenator and Don is tool of the week, so they’ve got a fair grip on their tools, however the following succinct description of some of our favoured tools has just come in from Baynesy and I thought it may have some relevance. Especially if you are anything like Don.

DRILL PRESS:
A tall upright machine useful forsuddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL:
Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench at the speed of light. Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, “Oh, shit!”

SKILL SAW:
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS:
Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER:
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle… It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS:
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH:
Used almost entirely for setting on fire, various flammable objects in your shop. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out of which you want to remove a bearing race..

TABLE SAW:
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK:
Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW:
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST:
A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

FLAT BLADED SCREWDRIVER:
A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR:
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER:
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

STANLEY KNIFE:
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts. Especially useful for slicing work clothes, but only while in use. Great at removing stubborn ends of fingers.

‘FUCKING THING’ TOOL:
Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling “Fucking thing” at the top of your lungs. It is also, most often, the next tool that you will need.

‘U - B’ TOOL:
You’d be fucked if I hit you with it.

All right, the title is clearly from my perspective! In truth, international drag racers had little to fear from our exploits, but shit, there were some cool customers driving some trick machines at Bairnsdale recently.

I had the CRF450R tricked up as described in the last post. No, not the bugle tune, you idiot, but my most recent ranting.

Here’s how it went.

The meeting started around 4 p.m. I had no idea whatsoever what went on or how to wear it. So I unloaded the bike in the pits and went down to suss a few things out.

As it happened, I watched a few starts from both in front of and behind the christmas trees, asked a couple of questions and it was all very simple.

It was an 1/8th mile strip, or about 200 metres.

There was no stuffing about. If you wanted to race, you simply lined up. First in best dressed. Line up at the white line and follow the directions of the marshalls. They point at you and direct you to move into the area behind the start whilst those on the grid already do their thing. Then they point at the line and you’re up. Do a burnout if you want and let’s see what you’ve got.

Compared to the cars, all I seemed to have was a fairly pissy burnout. I was nervous as anything, but luckily I was early and got half a dozen runs by myself to work out the quirks and stomp on the bugs.

A clear light came on at the top of the tree when you were close to the line, then as you inched further forwards, a blue light below it came on to let you know you were in the zone. Now you just wait for a half dozen or so yellow lights to flash through to green and off you go.

I ran a bit of front brake and loaded the clutch, then when the last yellow light was on, I let both levers go, just cntinuing to slip the clutch a little.

It was very different. Traction was not an issue, but keeping the front end down was. Second gear, 1/4 throttle, nuts on the fuel cap and slipping the clutch saw the front end want to lift every time.

On the dirt, there’s a bit of slip at the back wheel which allows you to bury the throttle a bit more, but here, it all about ‘control control’. In practice, when I tried more, I got less. Speed that is.

Once the front end was down though, it was full noise.

A bit further down the track though and you can have some fun.

Mostly this was just showing off, giving a tug on the bars as I bashed from 4th to 5th. I was telling myself it was all in the name of traction control, but the chance of her breaking loose on the bitumen at around 120 was zilch.

The new ignition and jetting curve that Pip programmed into the bike was awesome. It went better everywhere, but particularly in the top end, where it had bulk more over rev, allowing me to hold gears longer. It’s the same curve that AJ Roberts uses. Wasted on me normally, but not at the drags.

Have you noticed the complete lack of Suzuki drag bike in the last sequence of photos? Simple answer really, I was smokin’ his butt!

That is, until near the finish line when he came up on me at conservatively 800 Kph, resulting in a dead heat. He reckons he pipped me, but I know I won.

Then I raced a Harley softail. I think he’s still out there somewhere, I beat him by that much. Relegated to air compressor duties well before the lights even came on.

Later, a Buell. Fool. Halfway down the strip I was about 3.6 kilometers ahead so pulled a rudely big wheelie just for fun. Yeah, he might have pipped me on the line, but everyone knew he was a tool, riding a Buell.

The organisers lined up local gun Matt on an RMZ250 to take me on, since we were both motocrossers. Matt is a national level gun rider, but turned up about 20 hp down on my beast, so got smoked.

When it came Christmas tree time though, ‘Pistolis at dawn’, the bullshit went out the window. I went forwards fast and he was forced to contemplate his absurd lack of horsepowers. Notice no Suzuki in this shot?

Could ride but. (New Bairnsdale speak) At the end of our race, I did an impromptu wheelie then burnout for the crowd. He countered with the old ‘go away you silly old bugger, move over for the one handed burnout in circles thingy’. Crowd pleaser that one.

We lined up a special ‘drag’ where we both just did strip long wheelies. Crowd loved that.

Then it got more fun. Drags under lights is way more romantic. Burnouts adopt a whole new persona.

Fifth gear, pinned.

Didn’t help much and in fact I got slower as the night went on. I had worked 17 or 18 hours straight at this stage with hard days before hand and was fair buggered.

The GSXR 750 smashed me in our last duel. I tried too hard, used too much mumbo and not enough clutch, got wheelspin and floundered off the line. We were neck and neck at the 50 metre mark then all I could do was wave goodbye as he buggered off into the distance.

All in all though, it was a hoot. Low cost, lots of fun. I’d recommend a run at your local strip between your mates just for fun and bragging rights.

Don’t bother with road tyres. Just drop the forks, raise the gearing, chuck on some leather and go have some fun. Note to self: get a launch control fork compressor device next time to allow more mumbo off the line.

I started with 30 psi in the back tyre, dropping it to 10 psi on advice. With the hard walled Metzeler street tyres I was running I could hardly tell the difference truthfully. I ran 30 psi in the front for less resistance.

I could have done with a little more spring pre load on the rear to counter squat, but at the time it was way hot in the full Teknic leather suit (I use it to ride the Blackbird to work) and I couldn’t be bothered. I was flying anyway.

However if it was coming down to something serious like ‘Rod versus Wayno’ then perhaps the special adjusting tool (hammer and drift) would have come out.

Near the end of the night, my mate Dwayne, who works with me, had his name drawn from the hat to win a ride in this freakish blown FJ Holden that could pull better wheelies than my CRF.

Dwayne is a rev head from way back. He didn’t let on, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that he manned up and hid the latent fear that most blokes would have had. The thing rocked and in a pre run, it launched off the track on two wheels near the end of the strip at about 756 Km/h!

The driver took it easy on Dwayne and backed off halfway down the strip. It was a six second run.

WTF? I hear you say. Yeah I know, madness. But as it turns out, something very different and lots of fun, so lets look at how to do some basic low cost mods to your bike to maximize your fun at the strip.

First of all, let’s clear things up. I want to go drag racing on my CRF450R. Bitumen. I’m going to attend the Bairnsdale Motor Expo and there is a drag meeting linked in with that on the Saturday night, with me invited.

I’ve never been drag racing and fully believe that not only might it be some fun, but I might learn something in the process.

So, let’s see what I can do to the 450 to get her up to speed.

It’s all about the launch. Dirt bikes are way short in the wheel base and wheelie way too much, so working out how to keep the front down is a good start. Wheelstands necessitate reducing the power by either backing off the throttle or slipping the clutch, neither of which promote faster times down the strip.

I dropped the forks through the clamps as far as they would go, so they topped out on the handlebars. This way I picked up around and inch and a half and the bike started to get that nose - down ’stinkbug’ look.

Then I went to the arse end and wound up the rear preload to buggery. I’m now running about zero static sag and only about 60 mm of race sag (with me on the bike wearing full race kit).

Whilst at the back, I wound both the low and high speed compression damping up to max.

Why? To prevent ’squat’, or lowering of the rear under acceleration. Squat promotes wheelstands.

Then I went to gearing. The strip I was riding on is only 1/8 mile, or around 200 metres. Stock gearing would be too short and I’d be on the limiter before the end, reducing top end speed and my times.

So I cracked out a 44 tooth rear sprocket I had left over from Finke and bolted it up. This had the effect of not only raising the gearing nicely, but also maximising the wheelbase.

Obviously, the further the rear wheel is set to the back, the less chance of a wheelie. Mine is as far back as it will go. Note I used the standard crappy non O - ring chain, which also has less resistance and therefore picks up about 1/4 of a horsepower at the back wheel. Every bit helps.

Then I thought of tyres. Yeah, knobbies would have been okay, but I wanted the motard look. I just happened to have some older roadie tyres lying around in the OOT stack. I also happened to have a new CRF450X lying about, so I stole the wheels off the X and bolted on the 21″ front and 18″ rear roadie rubber.

The X and R wheels are fully interchangeable, which is great. Ditto with the 250 and 450.

It was starting to take on the motard look and was gaining potential with every step.

Last but not least was the Coup de Resistance (sorry, can’t do the little french thingies to make it look like ‘resistonce’). Whilst at Honda HQ picking up our bikes, I bumped into Pip Harrison who offered to plug the bike into his laptop and upload some cool curve he had developed for one of their gun racers.

The thing has electronic fuel injection and one can change the ignition and or jetting via a keystroke. We opted for slightly more bottom end and more over - rev. The extra over - rev comes principally from it being leaned out slightly in the top end, with perhaps a little less ignition advance.

Did it make any difference? Shit yeah! The thing goes similarly down low, but now is way happier to haul bulk revs in the top end. It might not produce much more total power, but is way happier to scream away, allowing the lunatic rider to hold gears longer and therefore on a racetrack potentially shift less often. It used to ’sign off’ and just stop revving, but now is mad man.

Unfortunately the ordeal with the laptop was over in about 30 seconds and I got no photos.

I had no choice but to test it. Being Rec. Regd. it was fully legal to run up and down the bitumen road at my front door.

Without breaking the law of course, corner speed was wild with the extra grip of the tyres and lowered front end.

It had so much traction, a wheelie was inevitable every time I tried a race start. In my case, second gear was the go, at about 1/4 throttle and with some clutch slip. After about 10 metres and once I could get my feet on the pegs and the front close to the bitumen, then it was on for young and old at full throttle.

I still had to lean over the front the stop the wheelies.

I was pleasantly surprised how hard the thing pulled and it will be interesting to see how she goes against the other bikes and cars Saturday night.

In fact, the race has been done and dusted and the results are in, but I don’t have the photos yet, so you’ll have to wait. Surprising results, I must say.

I was never under any illusion though that the piss ant wheelbase and comparably piss ant power output would allow times that were anywhere near competitive. I just wanted to reduce the chances of me (and Victoria Police) looking like the whole toolbox on the night.

Being a fan of the Transformer movies, I couldn’t help but come up with the name MEGATRON for the newest addition to the OOT fleet.

I’ve been after some type of track building device for some time and have been surfing e bay and the Trading Post for over six months, working out what’s available and at what cost.

The RUDD rebate cut the cost of all industrial equipment and tractors overnight, with heaps of blokes taking advantage of the 50% rebate and updating their gear. A huge influx of second hand gear for sale has seen prices drop. Two years ago, you would have paid perhaps 10 or 12 grand all day for something like a Massey Ferguson MF40 industrial loader/backhoe, which is an old 2WD 1970s jigger based on a tractor.

Now you can probably get a 4WD tractor with a front end loader for that.

It’s been somewhat of a quandary wondering what to buy.

A bobcat is easy to use and bulk fast. But they can’t dig for shit and haven’t really got much grunt. Once you’ve built your track, the Bobcat is the king of track maintenance, but a track builder it’s not.

A wheeled loader is pretty cool, with much more grunt than a Bobcat, but again, they can’t dig much. And dig you must to source dirt for jumps and berms. Big - arsed wheeled loaders are also fairly pricey.

A dozer is a cool bit of gear. They don’t stop for much and effectively mulch as they go. Run a dozer around your preferred track layout and you end up with a few inches of churned up mega - roosty - loamy stuff to hool about on like an idiot until it becomes hard packed.

Dozers can’t pick dirt up though and aren’t a backhoe, so they don’t dig real good. They also tend to churn everything up wherever they go. It’s hard to ‘tread lightly’ in a D6.

A Drott would be cool. A Drott is like a dozer, with tracks and perhaps a backhoe. You can get ‘em with a four in one loader bucket on the front. Very serious bit of kit for track building, but out of my price range.

What is then the most universal bit of kit? MEGATRON.

The girls favour the name ‘Bumblebee’ because it’s yellow like the dude off Transformers of the same name. He’s a Massey Ferguson MF 40 ‘Industrial Loader/Backhoe’.

He’s got a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel (albeit in this case fully rooted), an industrial strength front end loader, an industrial strength backhoe and a powerful hydraulic pump that runs both. No waiting for slow old tractor hydraulics here, this thing has some grunt.

And no brakes to speak of.

Limited stability, as it turns out, unless the outriggers are down.

The air conditioning is basic.

The whole unit looks fairly rude, really.

I bought her for the princely sum of two grand, knowing fully well that her engine sucked, but acknowledging that apart from that she was a reasonable platform from which to build a valuable tool.

I had her asessed by Des the local tractor guru prior to purchase. I cast my eye over the rig, checking out bushes and pins for wear. All looked pretty good. Sure, there was surface rust, but that was hardly an issue.

She could be started and her bits went up and down as they should, with minimal leakage, which was a good sign.

I got her home on Ernie’s tray truck.

I just had to give her a run.

The bitch smoked liked a joint. She then took a leaf out of Transformers and urinated hydraulic oil all over me when I tried to use the backhoe. Her brakes were rude and slewed uncomfortably to the left when applied, not helped in the slightest by the slew of the heavy backhoe thingy bolted to the back, which was leaking and didn’t bloody work that good.

It’s motor ran, but had only a portion of the grunt it should have had. Despite it’s issues, the thing was a beast and had heaps of potential.

I was able to run down trees up to around 6 inches diameter with ‘gay abandon’. I’m not boasting about environmental destruction here, but I have soft sandy soil and some feral regrowth that needs to be removed. The trees are now scared and appear to be retreating further into the forest.

I can dig a bit. The loader bucket has some mumbo by itself as long as the back wheels have grip enough to push it along.

The backhoe has some serious mumbo, despite it’s urinating disposition.

Any idiot can drive it. Select your ratio (effectively a 4 speed) then push on forwards or reverse with your right foot. Yep, it’s a bloody auto with a torque converter.

Please ignore the type from the photo above. It’s quite obvious on closer inspection that Right = push shit over and Left = go backwards to line up more shit to push over.

The pedal in the middle allows more revs to be added to speed up the loader actuation or road speed of the whole shebang. Believe me, She Bangs!

So, it’s rebuild time.

I’ve sent the offending leaking hydraulic line from the backhoe off to my local guru and $80 later the digger from hell is right to wreak havoc.

The motor is fully rooted. A cursory inspection of the intake hose revealed a rudely large orifice that had allowed the ingestion of approximately 347.5 Kgs of local dirt into the motor. Yes, the same motor that effectively now has no rings. No rings = No power. Bummer.

This pipe runs between the air cleaner and the injectors and yes I found a fair bit of dirt in the injectors too, so it’s all gotta come apart.

I’ve had much better luck with the loader. I set about greasing the bejeesus out of every nipple in sight. I came unstuck almost immediately when a few nipples resisted my advances. Grease spewed forth on my side of the nipple, obviously not getting anywhere near the shit that actually needed the lube.

So I took the stress off the pins by lowering the bucket to the ground lightly, so they’d come out easy. Removal of the pins showed that it was not the nipple that was at fault, but the hole in the pin that allowed the flow of grease.

The grease runs from the nipple, through a hole running along the centre of the pin, then into another hole drilled across the pin allowing the goo to push out and lube the outside of the pin and the inside of the bush or hole it runs in.

I drilled out the holes with my cordless and poked other orifices with wire until the flow was all good again.

Note that grease will follow the path of least resistance, meaning that it’s not certain that everything that needs lubing gets lubed. So to help make sure, I completely removed each pin and greased both the entire pin and the bush it was going back into before replacing it and pumping it with the grease gun.

If I didn’t do this, the grease might just run to the left hand side, like can be seen in the above photo, without actually heading to the right hand side of the pin at all.

These jiggers are based on a Massey 165 or 168 tractor and are ready to have a PTO and three point linkage attached. If I wanted to, I could turn the beast into an agricultural beast that could plough a field.

Having now done pretty much all I either have time for or are capable of, it’s time to float the old girl down to Des’s join to have her motor rebuilt.

If the bore liners are okay (which is doubtful) then we may get away with an in - chassis rebuild, at a cost of maybe only a couple of grand.

I think I’m dreaming though and the dirt will have fully rooted the liners. 5 grand is more like it. Assume the head needs a tune up, the crank needs a grind and the pistonis are rude.

It’s no race weapon and is old, slow and not that capable compared to new and larger equipment available, but compared to a shovel and wheelbarrow it is the shit.

Now all I need is someone to show me how to use it.

I can see Blue grinning right now.