Airhead
AIRHEAD
Keeping BMW's sporting heritage alive
BRIAN CATTERSON
POP QUIZ: NAME THE BRAND OF MOTORCYCLE THAT won the 1939 Isle of Man Senior TT. Can't do it? Then how about a record 19 sidecar world championships? Still don't know? All right, then how about the inaugural AMA Superbike Championship in 1976? That last one was too easy. Yes, it's BMW. The venerable German manufacturer, which in 2003 celebrated its 80th anniversary, has a sporting heritage that many enthusiasts have forgotten. Sure, the Bayerische Motoren Werke has had a sub stantial presence at Daytona in recent years, sponsoring the annual Battle of the Legends races and, this past March, a hugely successful round of the international
BoxerCup series. But for the most part, “BMW” and “motorcycle racing” aren’t often spoken in the same breath. Jerry Settle would like to change that. A Baptist minister and family counselor by trade, Settle also happens to be an avid vintage racer whose favored mount has one cylinder sticking out on each side. Like many of his peers, he competes under the auspices of the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association, a.k.a. AHRMA, in the Sportsman and Formula 750 classes. Which gave him an idea: Rather than put on an event that featured retired racers, as did the Battle of the Legends, or contemporary racers on their way to or from the big leagues, a la the BoxerCup, why not showcase those individuals who regularly compete on BMWs? Thus the “Airhead Invitational” was bom. “Airhead,” for those not versed in BMW parlance, is slang for an air-cooled Boxer, predecessor to the current-generation “Oilhead.” The fact that the last air-cooled BMW rolled off the assembly line in 1993 meant that eligible bikes would be at least 10 years old, making them all at least tenuously vintage.
Settle mentioned his idea to AHRMA official Jack Turner, who suggested Alabama’s Talladega Gran Prix Raceway as the perfect venue. Not only is the track small and tight, emphasizing handling over horsepower, but it’s a superb spectator venue with a certain Continental Circus flavor-when was the last time you saw a grass paddock? Moreover, the AHRMA series finale was scheduled to be held there on October 4-5, coincidentally the same weekend as a BMW owners’ rally at the brand-spanking-new Barber Motorsports Park in nearby Birmingham.
Upon learning of the race, I got in touch with Chris Hodgson at San Jose BMW, nee CC Products, whom I’d befriended when I competed in the aforementioned BoxerCup race at Daytona (CW, July 2003). Chris had built an R100 roadracer nicknamed the “Wrecking Ball” that had achieved minor-league-legend status in the early ’90s, and I asked him if he’d consider bringing the bike out of retirement for me to ride. After all, I already had a cool set of BMW leathers...
Thankfully, Chris agreed. The only problem was that the bike was set up for Bonneville (recently setting two class records at 155 and 156 mph), and so needed to be converted back to roadracing trim. This took longer than expected, and when our transportation plans fell through at the last minute, I ended up driving the bike from California to Alabama myself.
One has a lot of time to think on the road, and my thoughts turned to a girl I’d met at a BMW press introduction in San Antonio circa 1989. Karin was the food-and-beverage manager at the hotel where we were staying, and we struck up a conversation at the cocktail reception before dinner. At one point, the head of BMW North America introduced himself, and learning that Karin was of German descent, invited her on the following day’s test ride. As my passenger. My apparent audacity in bringing a “date” on the ride drew the ire of a certain editor of a certain BMW club newsletter, who to this day continues to chastise me in print. Never mind the truth...
Be that as it may, Karin and I hit it off, and for two years were involved in one of those fanciful yet ultimately doomed longdistance relationships. We talked about her moving in with me in California, but her mom fell ill and she decided she’d better stay in Texas to care for her, which she did.
We lost touch over the years, and as I was driving through Amarillo on this trip, I decided to track her
down. Unfortunately, the only listing the operator had that was vaguely a match was in Austin, and the receptionist at the hotel where she’d worked said none of the current employees had ever heard of her. I figured she must have gotten married and changed her name, and hoped that I would hear from her someday.
Anyway, two looong days and 2100 miles later, I made it to “Little Talladega” in time for Friday practice, sailing right past the entrance after failing to notice the small sign set far back from the road and slightly obscured by the neighboring church. Yup, this was the Bible Belt all right. The racetrack itself caught my attention, however, as the ribbon of asphalt snaking through the newly mown lawn looked like a Field of Dreams for roadracers.
Chris and I set up our pit area, and as he got busy mounting the Metzeler Rennsport tires he’d brought with him on the plane, I sauntered down to sign-up. I noticed quite a few BMWs en route, which boded well not only for our race but for the entire event, as the additional competitors and spectators the Airhead races drew helped salvage what was otherwise the most poorly attended event of AHRMA’s 2003 season.
Reportedly, there were 600 entries at Barber’s the previous weekend, but most of those competitors opted to skip Talladega.
By the time I returned to our pit, a small crowd had gathered around the Wrecking Ball, and this scenario was repeated throughout the weekend. Most of my fellow competitors and no small number of spectators stopped by at some point and told Chris that they had some of his parts on their bikes-which in the Airheads’ case is saying something because most of those parts have long since been discontinued, Chris having shifted his attention to the more-modem Oilheads and K-bikes. He still gets his fair share of inquiries from Airhead owners, however, and says he doesn’t mind taking the time to answer their questions-with one notable exception.
“I just hate when they ignore my advice,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean, how do they think this bike got so fast? Don’t they think I know what Fm doing?”
Apparently, most of the Airheads racers have been heeding Chris’ advice. Because for the most part, they appeared to be well-versed technically, knowing which pistons, cranks and rods combined to make which displacement engines, and the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each. Which con-rods to use, long or short, was a hot topic,
as was which electronic ignition worked better than the old points and condenser. One fellow asked Chris why he hadn’t re-angled the Wrecking Ball’s intake tracts (the answer was, because he’d reshaped the ports internally), prompting a lengthy discourse on airflow, valve sizes, exhaust-pipe diameters, etc., etc., etc. Taking this all in, I wondered how many other racers know as much about their engines as do these “Airheads.”
The variety of machines was no less impressive. Three humble 1970s R50s and a 1939 R51 made up the 500cc class, the 750cc class comprised no fewer than 11 R75s of various vintages, and then there was Scott Olofson on his R80, Settle on his R90 (his R75 broke at Barber’s and he ran out of time to fix it) and my solitary R100. Strangely, there were no R65s
entered, and the one exotic bike that everyone was hoping to see, Ralph Auer’s classic 500cc Rennsport, was absent because its rider was away on a hunting trip. Ralph’s father Ozzie did show up, however, he and collector Dave Percival bringing a trailerload of bikes for the Campbell brothers and 65-years-young Willie Betsch, who came all the way from Germany to race the aforementioned R51.
“At home, I am only allowed to race a 250 now because of my age,” Willie lamented. “I may need to come to the U.S. more often!”
The fact that Betsch had crossed the Atlantic to race a BMW got me thinking, what’s the attraction?
No better place to ask than across pit road, in the trailer/mobile operating room of Mad Doctor Racing’s Michael Burke. A physician by day, the Michigan resident was emphatic, saying, “I wouldn’t ride anything else.” A dyed-in-the-wool Beemerphile, he enjoys beating up on Italian bikes at the annual Ducati Owners Club of Canada Rally at Grattan, admits to having a garageful of parts bikes and even carries a BMW streetbike in his trailer to use as a lifeboat in case of emergency.
Pitted next door to the Mad Doc was Tom High, whom one would think would have had his fill of physicians by now. Three years ago, while riding his streetbike through the fog, a car crossed the centerline and hit the Floridian headon, landing him in a nursing home for a year. He still has no feeling from the right knee down, but that couldn’t dissuade him from returning to racing at the Airhead Invitational.
“BMWs are the finest motorcycles on the market,” proclaims the BMW Master Tech, who claims to have logged over a million miles on the German bikes without any major problems. “I own 16 BMW motorcycles as well as other bikes, but would rather ride the Beemers.” “I tried to keep you honest,” he said after the race, and I know he did, because his lap times had dipped into the 1:09s as he gave chase. But I’d also gotten quicker over the course of the weekend, and turned a high 1:05 and a couple of low 1:06s before settling into “cruise” mode.
Glenn Maxwell of New Mexico offers a slightly different perspective. “I race BMWs for the challenge to be competitive on a motorcycle that was not known for being a factory-backed race machine,” he says. “When you win on a BMW, the other racers aren’t sure if you’re a great rider, or you’ve got a special machine that really handles, or you’re a tea-totaling crazy two-wheeled bandit that just stole it from them!”
Pennsylvanian Anton Largiader echoes Maxwell’s sentiments, with a twist. “After seeing some really well-prepared racebikes, I think the BMW handicap is a bit less than I had anticipated,” he says. “Well-ridden vintage BMWs are competitive with far more of their peers than I had hoped-once you figure out how to keep the cylinder heads off the ground!”
Ah yes, that little bugaboo. I’d fretted endlessly about dragging the cylinder heads in the Daytona BoxerCup race, and was even more leery about doing so on the Wrecking Ball, seeing as how it was a one-of-a-kind machine valued at $20,000 (I know, because that’s how much I had it insured for). But to my pleasant surprise, the old R100 proved to have better cornering clearance than the newer RUOOS!
Though I’d raced against Eron Flory on the Wrecking Ball at Willow Springs in the early ’90s, and knew it was faster than my Ducati 750,1 had no idea how well sorted it was. After one jetting change it carbureted perfectly, its booming exhaust note echoing off the trees on the back straight like a low-flying P-51 Mustang. And with its Suzuki GSX-R1100 fork,
Paralever rear end and wide radial tires, it handled well, too-certainly better than all the twin-shock Beemers with their skinny bias-plies, to say nothing of the one with the Earles fork!
It didn’t take long to learn the 1.35-mile track, and by the end of Friday’s practice I’d been clocked at a l:08.86-which apparently was my official qualifying time under the loosely organized rules of the event. Fortunately, that was more than 2 seconds quicker than the second-best qualifier, which gave me pole position for the two 12-lap races scheduled as the featured events on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
Both races were pretty uneventful from my perspective, because truth be told, the Wrecking Ball was just that.
According to Chris, the heavily breathed-on engine was good for 92 horsepower at the rear wheel, compared to the 60-something of the strongest-running 750s, which gave me a wholly unfair advantage.
Even so, I didn’t get the holeshot. With a tall first gear in its close-ratio transmission, the Wrecking Ball required a fair bit of clutch slippage, which was all it took for Mark Mitchell to beat me to Tum 1 on his R75. And he did so again on Sunday. But both times I got by within a few comers, gave him the thumbs-up and then disappeared into the distance.
The action behind me was much more exciting, as I could tell by glancing across the field at various vantage points around the circuit. Weird, being both
racer and spectator. On Saturday, Mitchell fended off Ivan Messina to claim second place overall, and first in the 750cc class, with Troy McAfee not far behind. And on Sunday, late arrival Frank Shockley (he had to work on Saturday) came from the back of the grid to best Mitchell, Messina and McAfee for 750 honors.
Having competed against “Fast Frank” at Daytona, I knew he was a fierce competitor, and probably never more so than at this, his home track. But his near-stock 750 was no match for my mighty 1000.
As fine a spectacle as the races were, however, it was the camaraderie in the pits that was most memorable. All the competitors received handsome plaques, even those who didn’t win, place or show. And there were also a variety of special awards, such as the one Chris won for “Best PurposeBuilt Machine.”
As I stood at Saturday afternoon’s awards presentation mentally preparing what I might say, 750cc winner Mark Mitchell delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech wherein he thanked everyone I was planning to thank-and then me, too!
That made me glad for a couple of reasons, not least of which was the fact that I was worried about being labeled a “cherry-picker.” Not that I wasn’t-because I most assuredly vras-but I sincerely hoped that my fellow competitors and, more importantly, the spectators had gotten a thrill out of seeing the Wrecking Ball in action. Particularly as this was likely to be its last-ever race.
Mark’s was a tough act to follow, so I just repeated what he said and then gave the winner’s plaque to Chris (I kept the one from Sunday). After all, it was his bike that had won
the race; I just had to turn the throttle.
The next day, as I was driving through Oklahoma feeling pretty good about the weekend, I thought of Karin again, and decided to call the number in Austin. It turned out to be her aunt, who informed me that after caring for her mother, Karin had gotten sick herself and died. Suddenly, the firstplace plaque on the passenger seat didn’t seem so important.
Texas felt even emptier on the way home, like Daytona did this past March without Randy Renfrow, or the past 10 years without Jimmy Adamo. In racing, as in life, it’s the people that are irreplaceable. Bikes can always be rebuilt.
