 My interest in vintage bikes stems back to the days when it wasn't vintage. As a kid in Pennsylvania my father, Tom Steele, worked for Maico East, then Maico America, in the '70s. All the stories of his led me to retore an old bike and join AHRMA. It was a mix of two free '70 Yamaha DT1s. After getting the crap kicked out of me on the straights of the Elsinore Grand Prix, I dumped that snail and purchased a real bike from a former teammate of mine on "Team Hell On Wheels." It's a '72 Husky 250 WR. The transmission has CR gearing from first through fourth for closed-course MX tracks, and fifth gear out of a WR model for grand grix racing and scrambles. The first four gears are all pretty quick but once you drop it into fifth it just grunts and tears away from a full CR. The frame has been painted black. The tank is the larger enduro model painted black with traditional chrome knee rest areas. All aluminum parts were stripped, polished and clear-coated. The pipe has a custom polished aluminum heat shield with matching polished silencer. I'm running Rental bars and grips to help with hand/forearm fatigue. It runs a Mikuni carb, not very well, but the parts are cheaper. Any riders out there with tips on Mikuni/Husky combos please e-mail me at jnasteele@earthlink.net. This photo is from the '99 Adelanto Grand Prix, the longest set of whoop-de-doos anywhere! I flooded it on the line and fouled both plugs, then rode three five- or six-mile loops with barely any spark, but it made it and I finished ahead of a few experts! |