weatherwatcher Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) Liked what I saw of the rides by Bomber, must say though it seemed to lack quite a bit in straight line speed. That could have been down to the gearing and not the engine though. It was good off the start and if Bomber can get it to go from the tapes, then it must be good. I really can't see how it can be leagle. You could have said the same about the GM's when they started to replace the Jawa's. But noone knows for sure, unless they have seen one in pieces, what is actually going on inside the engine. All I have ever seen are pictures of the outside of the engine, there are no scematics of it. Come to think of it neither are there any for the Jawa's and GM's come to think about it. What made them come up with the very chuncky looking barrel, it just looks like an unfinished block of aluminium but it works very well for all that. But on the inside it is no more that a crank and a piston. With a bore of 500cc like all the others. Would love to know, what they have done to make the big difference to the other engines. Edited June 10, 2015 by weatherwatcher Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Skid Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Won't be long before a GTR gets bought and sent to PJR for some special tuning, then the costs will be exactly the same as before. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHILIPRISING Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Won't be long before a GTR gets bought and sent to PJR for some special tuning, then the costs will be exactly the same as before. BUT that will be up to the rider(s) concerned. If they want to spend additional money in the belief it will be better so be it. Chris Harris told me on Monday that Jarek Hampel sent his engines back to his tuner after just two meetings, 10 heats. But on the evidence of what he rode that night Chris said would be happy to run with that. If a rider believes that a GTR performs as well as a GM without additional tuning and servicing and can save him a significant sum of money over the course of a season then surely it has to be a viable proposition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teddy2706 Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Firs ever laydown i ever saw was in 1975 at a winter training school at Cradley Heath. Bruce Cribb had one, did about 2 laps & went bang!! Probably the first laydown speedway engines were Douglas machines in the very early days (late 1920's) Douglas made a complete bike, the DT in the early thirties. Certainly Wal Phillips built a JAP laydown in the 40's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 If a rider believes that That's half the battle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Skid Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 But, when Rider X gets his GTR going much quicker after his visit to PJR, then Mr Standard rider will have to follow, or get left behind . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 But, when Rider X gets his GTR going much quicker after his visit to PJR, then Mr Standard rider will have to follow, or get left behind .Yip,every top rider will do all he can to make sure (he thinks) he has an advantage on the opposition.(whether it is the engine or the rider, you can't tell though).They like throwing their money away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Jasper Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 This is a fascinating thread (for a non technical person). Going back through history, does anybody know who the first rider to ride a lay down engine in a competitive meeting? I recall Martin Hagon running one in the 80's. I think Hans was the first top rider to switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHILIPRISING Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 But, when Rider X gets his GTR going much quicker after his visit to PJR, then Mr Standard rider will have to follow, or get left behind . Mr Standard rider doesn't go to PJR now and who is to say that he will get them to run much quicker anyway. But if a rider can use the same competitive engine for weeks and months on end with little or no service bills then pure economics will kick in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humphrey Appleby Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 If a rider believes that a GTR performs as well as a GM without additional tuning and servicing and can save him a significant sum of money over the course of a season then surely it has to be a viable proposition. If it performs that well 'out-of-the-box', then it'll no doubt perform even better after it's been tuned. And once one rider turns up with a tuned GTR, everyone else will have to do the same. I wonder how many riders would equate slightly lesser performance (and losing points money) over improved reliability (and thus saving money)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHILIPRISING Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Yip,every top rider will do all he can to make sure (he thinks) he has an advantage on the opposition.(whether it is the engine or the rider, you can't tell though).They like throwing their money away. THE market place is not the top riders but if someone like Harris thinks he can be more competitive and save money then that's the route he will take. If it performs that well 'out-of-the-box', then it'll no doubt perform even better after it's been tuned. NOT necessarily. Much of the work that is carried out by tuners when building a GM and replacing various parts has already been done. Of course, it will always be possible to improve something but, I repeat, for a bread and butter rider an engine that is both competitive from the outset and able to run for several meetings on the bounce why go to that expense. Not every dropped point is down to an opponent net having a 'faster' engine. If the top riders wish to spend tens of thousands of pounds constantly having their super-tuned engines serviced and refined that is their prerogative but for those lower down the scale they are never going to beat those guys anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromafar Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 A young up and coming rider is not going to make it to the top on Standard equipment .That is what he will think IMO .To be the best is every young riders ambition is it not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weatherwatcher Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 It will be a crying shame if the powers that be let the top riders get thier grubby paws on an engine that has been designed, built and now in the early stages of track testing, in actual meetings, to be butchered and glorified, just so they can be the top bee. The whole concept of this engine is that straight from the factory, it can be run competative for much longer than the other engines. No doubt Gerhard will have a clause, that when you by an engine and start to mess about with it, there will be no comebacks. This will surely become the engine to use for the riders who are the bread and butter of speedway, who can ill aford to be spending money every few weeks, on having to get the engine rebuilt. When they will be able to hopefully buy a Gerhard engine to see them the season out, without having to dig deep into thier or more than likely thier parents pockets. OK let the big guys go and ruin a good product if they wish to fork out money every week, just so you can stay at the top of the tree, rather meaningless , it is a very cut throat business these days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Skid Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 For someone so close to the Sport Phil is either towing the Party line or really hasn't got much understanding of modern ruthless Speedway, PL middle order Riders are paying £6k for an engine, and £700 for a service after 25 races, and that's fact not fiction 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OveFundinFan Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 So that means a PL rider needs to earn £28 per race just to pay for the service, never mind any other costs. What do they have to do to earn £28 per race? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHILIPRISING Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 For someone so close to the Sport Phil is either towing the Party line or really hasn't got much understanding of modern ruthless Speedway, PL middle order Riders are paying £6k for an engine, and £700 for a service after 25 races, and that's fact not fiction I KNOW that. But if the GTR doesn't require servicing for at least 100, maybe 200, races then the savings are quite astronomical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCB Posted June 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 I KNOW that. But if the GTR doesn't require servicing for at least 100, maybe 200, races then the savings are quite astronomical. But if you can tune it and now suddenly score more points than the people who have not tuned it you can earn a lot more money and win stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Angus Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 So that means a PL rider needs to earn £28 per race just to pay for the service, never mind any other costs. What do they have to do to earn £28 per race? Finish third? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sommelier Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 I recall Martin Hagon running one in the 80's. I think Hans was the first top rider to switch. Karl Maier was using one before Hans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Skid Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 At £50 a point, he has to score 2 points just to pay for his engine, that's without buying it or having a big blow up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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