BBR Motorsports, Inc - Official Blog

Winter Riding

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:23:00 +0000

I have been riding more than ever the last couple of months. My kids are ten and thirteen now so they are at that perfect age where they want to ride and race all the time. I just hope I can keep up with their hectic pace. The magazines like to use them to test ride the bikes and other kid related gear because they will run full tanks of gas through the bikes without stopping, and then beg for more. When I first had kids I just assumed that they wouldn’t want to ride. Isn’t that the way it works? Your kids don’t want anything to do with the things they can have easily, or that the parents are into? Guess my kids didn’t get that memo. I think they, and all of their friends, might be in to it more than I am - and that is not easy! I even find myself cringing after we have ridden all day and they want to put the headlights on so they can keep going at night. Oh well - at least the neighbors and their kids are all into it now too.

My son Carson and I flew down to Dirt Rider magazine a few weeks ago to help out with the 85cc shootout. Carson had never ridden a two stroke before. I always had this dream that he would be part of the first generation of kids that wouldn’t have to ride the ear piercing, ring sticking, nightmare jetting, neighbor yelling, two smoker. Technology hasn’t quite made it there yet. I figured by now the factories would all have 4-stroke, automatic, fuel injected, cheap, and EASY TO WORK ON bikes. Or better yet, electric bikes where you just flip a switch to change the power curve. I’ll keep on dreaming. Anyway, we had a blast riding the bikes. It was fun dicing with Carson and Jimmy Lewis - while someone else worked on the bikes for a change. The 85’s haven’t changed much over the years but it does seem like they run better than when I used to do the shootouts with my nephew Jeremiah (ten years ago). I was afraid Carson would want a 2-stroke now that he had eaten the forbidden (at BBR) fruit. But when asked if he liked two strokes he announced, “No!” He said you can only take one line on them; the outside with the throttle held wide open. He really is my kid!

Carson Brown with Jimmy Lewis

We are in the dead of winter up here in the Northwest so it is mud riding season. There is even a track called, “Mudslingers”. It only holds five races a year – all in the winter and it never fails to rain like crazy at every one of them. If you want to have the happiest kids in the world – take them to a mud race! This track absolutely packs the place out. They have full gates for every class. At the last race we went to at Mud-Slingers, I was standing on the starting line with all the other insane mini-parents and it was raining so hard you couldn’t even see the first corner. All the parents looked like they were having the most miserable day of there lives but the kids, on the other hand, were high-five’n, laughing, throwing mud balls, and chasing each other around. They were having even more fun out on the track. All you could see was white teeth from their big smiles as they circled around in the mud. Even the parents have to laugh when they see that. My kids are still asking when the next mud race will be.

Jen Brown at Mudslingers 2010

Luckily there are some indoor tracks up here in the Northwest. The main one we have been hitting this winter is Oakwood Arena. It is perfect for the little four-strokes and we have had a full class of 50’s, 110’s and 150’s pretty much every week. BBR is going to sponsor the last race there on March 21 so break out your mini bike and come hang out with us. We are even going to provide trophies for everyone (Obama style – it doesn’t matter how you finish!) in the mini 4-stroke classes. See you there!

Blast from the Past

The Blast from the Past comes from the July 2000 issue of Dirt Rider magazine. Ken Faught, Karl Kramer, and Rich Taylor worked on the story. The test was on a prototype RM 400 that we built with Yoshimura and Suzuki. We took a DRZ400 and an RM 250 and put them together. The hardest part of the project was getting it to feel like an RM250 when you sat on it and when you were riding it. I made a couple of aluminum tanks, subframes, and air boxes until it had that magic feeling. Yoshimura built the motor and I remember it had a super trick titanium crank in it. That engine was worth a small fortune. I remember they wanted us to insure it for $40,000 when we would ship it back and forth! Our buddy Rich Taylor was the head development rider over at Suzuki R&D so he was the test rider on this bike also. We took Rich and the bike to a few 4-stroke Nationals which were huge at the time. We wanted to make sure the bike rode as good as it looked. It did. Rich podiumed a few of them and I think he may have even won a moto or two against the fasted four-stroke racers in the world. The thing I remember most about this bike was when we raced it at the White Bros. Four-Stroke World Championships. All of the Suzuki and Yoshimura guys were out there working on the bike and were dead serious about Rich winning on it. Our work was done on it so we were more interested in having Rich race our new perimeter framed TTR 125 for us in the 150 class. I don’t remember anyone else being too excited about Rich racing that little bike. I think Suzuki and Yosh’ even told him he couldn’t. In true Rich Taylor fashion he jumped on the TTR at the last second – with no practice - and won the 150 class for us. The Brown Brothers might be the only guys in the world who cared more about the 150’s than the 450’s! Play bikes are our passion and are more fun for us. On that day, the big bikes and all of the seriousness felt more like a job. Thanks Rich for keeping our priorities straight!

Click image for story
Keep in touch - Duane

Indianapolis Dealer Show

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:10:00 +0000

We just got back from the 2010 Indy Motorcycle Dealer show. Each year the motorcycle community rolls into Indianapolis to show off their latest products. This was BBR’s 9th year with its own booth. We did a few shows before that by setting up our bikes in the Maxxis Tires and White Bros. booths. There have been some memorable years for sure. 2001 and 2002 were big years for full sized 4-strokes. Honda and Yamaha were jumping on the bandwagon with new 450’s and all of the aftermarket companies were in a race to see who could come up with the best upgrade parts. We kind-of took the opposite approach. We had spent the previous five years stuffing big and small 4-stroke engines into 2-stroke chassis. We had the opportunity to work with many of the OEMs on pre-production and prototype 450’s so we knew what was coming down the road. We decided to focus our attention on the bikes we loved – mini-bikes. By 2004 the mini bike scene was in full swing and every vendor booth in Indy had some sort of pit bike, or pit bike part, to offer. Half of them had no idea what the parts fit. Few had ever even swung a leg over a mini bike before, but that didn’t stop them. Either way, those were my favorite years because there were people standing 50 deep to get a look at the latest BBR bike or part. In the later years, it was all about the Chinese knock-off junk. Those bikes and Indy stories are legend by now so let’s not relive them here. I did notice at this year’s show that the knock off companies have focused on the side by side market. Have fun with that, guys! The show was a little slow this year due to all the “end of the world” stuff going on right now but it is always great to see our industry friends and riders there.

Bob Hannah signing a vintage DG helmet at the 2010 Indy Dealer Show

Brent Brown hanging out with the Nitro Circus gang at the 2010 Indy Dealer Show

The Steak 'n Shake became our home-away-from-home but none of us were brave enough to try the Wisconsin Buttery Steakburger.

MiniMoto SX

It’s almost MiniMoto time. I can’t wait. It’s always a blast! If you haven’t ever raced MiniMoto before grab a bike and get yourself to Las Vegas (May 7th). If nothing else, just to say you did it. It’s full on demolition derby and everyone is going at least twice as fast as it looks from the stands. Any time you are lined up in front of 6,000 fans on a mini bike it’s a great day! The cheapest class is probably the 16’/150 class, or maybe the stock 50 class. Both of these classes the bikes have to stay (kind-of) stock so it keeps the cost down. Heck, I might even race one of the shop XR75’s this year. Derek Costella, Ryan Abrigo, Timmy Weigand, Victor Sheldon (along with the usual BBR race gang) will all be there. Come by and say “Hi” or bring a bike to race, and try to knock one of our guys off the top step!

Alright, I have a lot of bikes to build before MiniMoto, so I'd better get back to it! See you there!

Duane

Blast From the Past

The blast from the past comes from the July 2002 Dirt Bike magazine. The story covers the 2002 White Bros. Four Stroke World Championships. These races were always a blast because Lori at Glenn-Helen would let the BBR crew run the mini-bike part of the races (probably because she wanted nothing to do with this bunch of crazies). People would come from all corners of the country to give it a shot. We would advertise that everyone makes the main no matter what. Sometimes it meant that we had to run a two row or even three row start. Nobody seemed to care. When everyone started to line up, I would tell them, “If you think you have a shot at winning, line up on the front row. If not, find a place in the back”. At least everyone got a shot at the big money. We even did a thing called “Wacky Payback”. For “Wacky Payback” we took every rider’s number and put it into a hat. We had the top five fastest guys draw a number out of the hat, so the rider with that number got paid the same as the top-level rider drawing their name (no matter how they finished!). It was a lot of fun!

November Update

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:51:00 +0000

It’s been a crazy few months around here! From the introduction of the MM12P, to racing at the new Pacific Raceways track this summer, to prototyping parts for the new 2010 KLX 110, I haven’t had a minute to sit down and type a new blog. I guess I still don’t, but here we go anyway!

BBR MM12P

The BBR MM12P Production Bike Sales have exceeded our expectations and they have been rolling out the door as fast as we can build them. It still takes us a lot of time to gather all of the parts from around the world, and hand assemble them, so make sure you are on the list if you want one. We are still making many of the parts here at our facility in Auburn, Washington. That’s one of the advantages of being a manufacturing company. We can step in at anytime and build a part for the MM12P or any other project we are working on. This is especially true if our suppliers are not coming through on time or the quality is not where it needs to be. Since we designed and drew every part on the MM12P bike we can just fire up the machines and spit out the parts we need. Of course, in this day and age, making parts in American is extremely expensive and it seems the government finds new ways (daily) to punish us for manufacturing in the U.S.- but we do it anyways. How can anyone survive all of the regulations, fines, inspections, city codes, taxes, health insurance, environmental regulations, safety classes, politically correct classes, safety charts, fire dept inspections, electrical inspections, county codes, and fire extinguisher inspections? Did I mention taxes that go up daily, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, shop vehicle insurance, employee insurance, business owner life insurance, liability insurance, OSHA…..I could go on. We just want to build cool bikes! We are happy that there still seems to be good demand for our full-blown BBR Fabricated Team Race Bikes. There are still a lot of people who just want the very best money can buy. Now, our MM12P allows us to capture the consumers who want BBR quality, but don’t mind if we manufacture some of the parts overseas. Anyway, the MM12P bikes have worked out great and the feed back has all been positive. The only way you won’t love this bike is if your buddy buys one and you bought something else!

MM12P's waiting to be crated

More exciting news….we are building ten (10) Limited Edition MM12LE Factory Team Bikes that will be available in the next two weeks. These bikes will be setup race-ready exactly as we will set up our 2010 Las Vegas BBR National Event bikes. They will have our BBR USA V-3 Frame Kit, Billet SuperComp Swingarm, Marzocchi 35mm Shivers, Elka SuperShock, Galfer Rotors, and all of the other very best BBR equipment. There will be three engine choices ranging from a 150cc Daytona, a DOHC 150cc, or a 4V KLX160cc.

The new MM12LE

Also, watch for our new complete SuperPro and Perimeter 10” Race Bikes. You’ll see more about them in the next couple of weeks too!

Local Racing

We did a bunch of mini bike racing this summer. We went down to Olympia, Washington and raced the WORCS week. It was a total blast. If you haven’t ever raced off-road you should give it a try. Picture an hour plus MX race through the woods. It is supper tight and knarly, but a total blast. You definitely get you’re money’s worth. I raced it on a BBR 150F and it really seemed like the right size bike for the woods. Even when they sent us through the EnduroCross course the bike worked out great. My son Carson raced the 65 expert class on his BBR 110 and had a blast. You can read about it right here. Carson spends every minute he can riding and the muddier and nastier it is the more he likes it. WORCS week was right up his alley. Also, a new SuperMoto track was built just down the road from BBR, this summer at Pacific Raceways in Kent. It is a state of the art Go-cart, Drifter-car, and Supermoto track. We raced there three or four times this summer. The turn out in the mini bike classes were pretty good with 10 – 15 guys at each round. If you haven’t ever raced Supermoto before you have got to give it a try. Once you learn how to slide it in it is a blast. The Mini-bike class rules are fairly easy too. All you really need is a catch can for the oil overflow and you are ready to race. Only about half of the guys even ran slicks. Just line up on your bike and go. This facility would be a great place for a mini-bike national event so we will see what we can do! Oakwood arena In Spanaway, Washington is set to start Nov.15. There is always a good turn out of mini-bikes with classes for kids and adults. The promoters are fixing the facility up with new lights, a new starting gate, and vender row. Grab you’re 50, 110, or 150 and we will see you there. Check it out here: Oakwood Northwest Areacross Series

2010 KLX110L

The new KLX110 walked through the door last week and it looks pretty good. There are now two KLX110s available; a standard version and a tall version with a manual clutch. Both bikes received electric starting and completely new body work. Most of the old KLX engine parts will bolt right on but the body work and suspension are another story. The swimgarm pivot bolt has been lowered to accommodate a longer shock (still horrible) which throws a wrench into installing any current swing arm kits. Also, the rear fender is part of the battery box which now sits in the middle of where any good aftermarket shock would need to go. The forks still feel like they don’t have any oil or dampening whatsoever in them. The L version (or tall bike) is pretty cool for adults. The back end is jacked up a couple of inches too tall, though. That makes the bike handle like a bad 70s vintage bike (or current knockoff bike). It is probably ok for riding around the pits with you’re favorite drink in one hand, just don’t try to rail a corner “Costella style” the way it sits. BBR will be all over this bike, and we already have tons of parts for it. Just keep checking back for more parts as we get them dialed in. Here are a few photos of the new bike:

Tank shrouds completely cover the tank and are connected to each other with plastic rivets.

Front fender and number plate are a crazy molded shape. They will not interchange with the old style fender and numberplate due to the crazy lower tripleclamp shape.

Rear fender is pointed and is molded in one piece with the battery box (see below picture). This will not interchange with the old style fender and sidepanels.

Subframe tube bends out for the battery on the left side.

Flywheel cover is new with a sight hole and a hole to turn the flywheel.

This picture shows the giant lower steering bearing. The bottom bearing is tapered, but the top is still loose balls. This also shows the funky lower tripleclamp.

This is the manual clutch cover. Note that the new 4-speed is "1 down 3 up" shift pattern.

Kawasaki also added a lower chain roller.

Blast From the Past

This months blast from the past comes from the guys over at Mini-Moto mag 2005. Chris Gosselaar is on the cover on his way to winning the premier 110 class at Mini-Moto. This was one of my favorite years in Vegas and favorite races ever. At the time we were on an absolute mission to win Mini-Moto. The amount of testing and R&D we put into the race was unbelievable. I am still tired 5 years later from this race! This was at the peak of the Mini scene and you had every mini-bike company and most of the factories pouring huge amounts of time and money into this race. Chris Gosselaar was at his peak on big bikes running top five at every Supercross and his skills on a mini-bike were incredible to say the least. The only way he would lose is if we didn’t build a bike that was as good as he was. At the time everyone was running stock KLX frames, 138 motor kits, drum brakes etc.. We hooked up with Chris a few times a year to race 150s at various events so we would try a few parts out here and there when we would see him. It was clear early on that there wasn’t a single part on the stock 110 that he couldn’t break in a mater of minutes. We still joke that he even broke the stock gas cap. Good thing his dad (Mike Gosselaar ) is the world's best mechanic! Anyway - we started from scratch. We built a perimeter frame completely from scratch knowing that it would be the only way to get the bike to handle at the speeds Chris was going to go. It took months of testing, but man I felt great about that prototype frame and swing arm combo when it was done. I knew we had leap frogged a couple of years ahead of what anyone else was doing at the time. The next step was to make the engine as good as the chassis. A 138cc wasn’t going to do it. Chris was holding that engine wide open and flicking it around like a toy. We needed big horse power! We ended up machining a 150f Honda piston to fit in and basically created the first 160 kit. We tried some strokers but as always they wouldn’t rev so we knew that "12000 rpm Chris" would hate them. We tried a bunch of cam grinds, pipe sizes, carb sizes, etc until we came up with the magic indoor type of power. Once the bike was dialed all we had to do was get Chris on it and fine tune it. The Langetown 150 race was coming up so we figured Chris could ride a few practice laps there before the 150 race. He jumped on the bike and was instantly turning faster lap times on the small track than on his 150! He even asked us if he could race the 110 instead of the 150. I knew right there we had the winning combo. A few weeks later we headed to Vegas with the bike. Chris pretty much dominated every race he was in that night on the 110. It made the incredible amount of work, everyone put in at BBR, all pay off. Thanks Chris and everyone at BBR

Keep in touch and we will see you at the races!

Duane

MiniMoto SX 2009

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:40:00 +0000

We survived MiniMoto, raced the Mountain View N.W. mini bike national, and are moving ahead on the MM12P.

MiniMoto SX 2009

The MiniMoto SX was a blast as always – I think. Like I always say, anytime you are racing mini bikes in a stadium in front of 7000 people it’s a good time no matter what! The whole J-Law thing was as crazy as we knew it would be. J-Law is kind of like politics in America right now - split right down the middle with passion on both sides! Half the crowd loved him and cheered on his every psychotic move and the other half wanted to hang him and run him out of town. What a crazy night! When the race was over J-Law rode to his truck, got in and waited for the crowd to disperse, and drove off. We haven’t heard a word from him since. Bottom line is people stood in line for two hours to buy tickets, selling the stadium out (plus 500 standing room only tickets), in a crappy economy, to watch the craziness unfold. Jason kept everyone in the crowd standing on their feet, and many of the riders laying in the dirt. The end result was simple, though, he ensured that the number crunchers will STILL PUT THE RACE ON NEXT YEAR. Hey, if nothing else, it will always be remembered as that year Jason Lawrence raced! Now that me, and the whole BBR crew, are out of therapy we can get back to what we love; building bikes and testing…

MM12P

The MM12P is moving along great. No big snags so far, but we are picky, so it takes time to do it right. We did have some riders on the MM12P doing some real world testing at MiniMoto SX. Adam Booth showed up and raced one with no practice and finished about 7th in the 12 inch amateur class. Look for a story in an up coming issue of Dirt Bike Magazine. Amateur star (and all around great kid) Jason Anderson raced one in the 12 inch youth mod class. He crashed in the first turn of the main but flew on the bike and definitely had podium speed. The guys from Dirt Rider also rode the MM12P bike at Mini Moto so look for an article there also. We can’t wait to get the bikes in everyone’s hands. You are going to love them!

Super Moto in the Pacific Northwest

A new Super Moto track is going in at Pacific Raceway in Kent, Washington. The owners are sparing no expense to make sure it is one of the premier go cart and Super Moto tracks in the country. The grand opening is this Saturday June 20th. Derek Costella, fresh off his big win at the Vegas Super Moto national, is going to be on hand. Derek is going to spin some laps on his BBR super-moto mini bikes which will make it worth the drive all by itself. Derek will also be signing autographs at the BBR truck. Swing by and say Hi. For more information check out the Pacific GP website: http://www.pacificgp.com/

Mini Racing in the Northwest

The Mountain View N.W. Mini bike national went off this past weekend in Sandy Oregon. If you have never been to this legendary track, in Sandy Oregon, you have to check it out. It is located in a farming community with neighbors all around. It is a mini-bike rider’s dream. The track is made out of red clay, without a rock in it, and winds up and down through the woods. This is one of the best tracks I have ever ridden on. The turn out was small but a great time was had by all! See you there next year. Check out the track’s website here: http://www.mtnviewmx.com/

MTV Teen Cribs

The MTV link is up to the Teen Cribs show we did this winter. The response has been great. MTV has a huge hit on their hands with Nitro Circus so they are trying to do anything MX related. When they gave us a call we jumped at the chance to give Mini-Bikes some world wide coverage. Check it out here (click the image below to open MTV's website in new window):

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past comes from our buddies Donn Maeda and Garth Milan over at Transworld MX. This was the May 2003 issue. They did a story on the beginnings of BBR Motorsports. Thanks guys! Click the image for the full story:

Alright – Keep in touch and thanks for helping us live the dream! - Duane

Into the Storm...

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Wow – It has been the busiest few months ever at BBR. From the Indy Trade Show, to the testing and introduction of our new MM12P Production Race Bike, to dealing with the Lead Ban issues, to filming for the MTV Teen Cribs, to building and testing bikes for Mini Moto, and of course…working with J-Law on his upcoming Mini-Moto appearance in Las Vegas. I actually found a couple of minutes to type this before flying out to Vegas to walk into the storm that is Mini Moto.

Indy Dealer Show

First, lets go clear back to the Indy trade show in February. BBR unveiled the MM12P Production bike to all of the dealers there - where it received a great reception. The dealers are more than ready for a quality bike of this size and price point. I can’t wait to deliver the first round to them this summer. There was a noticeable absence of Chinese knockoff bikes at this year’s show. As a mater of fact, I don’t remember seeing one Honda knock-off 50, or even a BBR knock-off bike for that matter (other than the usual Chinese manufacturers). It was kind-of lonely without anyone to pick on! Anyway, good riddance to them all. Despite the poor economy, all the top name motorcycle parts companies had booths and floor traffic was up from last year. That’s good news for the motorcycle industry.

Big Government

Next on the list is the Lead Ban. The government stepped in and banned all toys with lead contents above 600 parts per million. This ban targeted at kids twelve years of age and under, and unfortunately was written with a very broad scope. The whole mess stems from the Chinese manufacturers who decided to use led paint in a bunch of toys (and dog food and medication). Everyone was excited to stop the contaminated toys from coming into the country and a bill was signed into law very quickly. The only problem was that it included every toy targeted at the twelve and under crowd. Baseballs, books, handmade clothing, and our beloved CRF50s and KLX110s. The dealers, who were already dealing with down sales, took another hit because the youth market is a huge part of any motorcycle shop’s business. Under this new law, these dealers can’t even sell replacement parts for kid’s motorcycles. Luckily at BBR, our target customer is adults (on kid’s bikes) so we have been able to sell throug h this mess – but it is hard to sell a bar kit to a guy who can’t buy a bike to put it on. Funny thing is, the Chinese are still selling knockoff 50’s and 110’s at the local auto parts stores and sporting good shops. I’m sure there is no lead in those bikes! It’s a double punch to our great U.S. dealerships who try to do the right thing….they follow the guidelines of the new law and pull all of the kid’s bikes off the showroom floor, then they watch as the Chinese bikes with all the lead in them continue to sell at the store down the street. Big Government and motorcycles just don’t mix very well. But we better get used to it. Our current government is just not very motorsports friendly. There have been land closure bills in the works for years which are coming into focus again now. These land closures will get little or no resistance, and will probably pass easily. Hang on for the ride.

If you want to help fight the Lead Ban you can learn more here:

http://www.mic.org/stbn.cfm

Be sure to check out the AMA’s website for information on possible land closures here:

http://www.amadirectlink.com/news/story.asp?id=816

MTV Teen Cribs

MTV has a new show out this season called Teen Cribs. The premise of the show is “Ordinary kids living extraordinary lives”. MTV sent a crew of nine people out to my house to follow my daughter Jennifer and our family and friends around. They came out for three days and shot over twenty hours of film for the ten minute segment. They did a lot of riding shots, home photos, and shop pictures. Hopefully, we hooked a whole bunch of people on riding! MTV will put it on their website permanently in a few weeks, so check it out at http://www.mtv.com/. Or check it out Tuesday April 28 at 1:00pm if you have satellite or at 4:00pm on cable (check your local listings). It is MTV Teen Cribs episode #11. The kids, family, and friends all had a blast and learned a lot. Thanks MTV!

Mini Moto SX

We have been building Mini Moto bikes like crazy since Christmas. Thirty+ race bikes for our team riders, plus who knows how many customer bikes! We tested the last couple of weeks with Derek Costella and Ryan Abrigo, and they both are going faster than ever! Not that he needed to, but Derek (the defending champion) has picked up the pace for sure. The guy is crazy on a mini bike. Every time Derek comes to our test facility, he walks right past the race bikes and goes for my daughter’s $70 “garage sale” Z-50 that she learned to ride on. Derek always says “let me race this thing in the stock class!” Well, it’s Derek’s lucky year. Mini-Moto is having a Z-50 8” class this year at Mini Moto. Derek threw a leg over the Z and spun a few laps at the BBR test track. I have never seen anything like it. I have been fortunate to ride with all the best riders in the world over the years, and have seen some crazy stuff. What Derek was doing on that little Z looked impossible. He’s crazy! Nobody has more fun riding Mini-bikes than Derek. For sure it is the key to his success. Ryan Abrigo is hauling right now also. Ryan is one of the most talented riders we have every worked with. He is completely injury free and has the bike set up perfect for him. Watch for big things from Ryan again this year. Timmy Weigand will be as fast as always, and has had time this year to practice for Mini Moto. Timmy knows how to win on minis, being the three time Langtown champ and White Bros 150 champ. Check out the holeshot Timmy had at last year’s Mini Moto in the 12E class (number 33):

We also have some fast kids riding for us this year. Jason Anderson will be there along with Kevin Flynn (racing the 13-17 youth class). My son, Carson Brown, will be riding the 12 and under youth class. He’s hoping that the 15 bikes he has destroyed in his short ten years on this earth will pay off for him! UPDATE: Tyler Villopoto and Drew Gosselaar will also contest the Mini Moto SX on BBR bikes. Both have blazing speed and should be fun to watch on Friday night. For more info on the Mini Moto SX click this link: http://www.minimotosx.com/

Jason Lawrence
I don’t know what to say. I had never met Jason before but he is going to do Mini Moto on a BBR/Monster Energy Factory Race bike. It should be like fire and water in our pits. It is funny to think about me and my brothers, who would feel right at home living with the Brady Bunch, and mix us together with the wild child and it should be fun…well at least for the internet crowd. One thing J-Law and all of us at BBR do have in common is our love for mini-bikes. Monster called up and asked us to build him a bike, so we said, “Let’s do it!” Can he win it? Who knows? About ten years ago we put on a 150 race in New Jersey as part of a video shoot for a mountain bike extreme video. I wasn’t there, but my guys came back talking about this crazy fast kid on an XR100…..Jason Lawrence. This kid has some serious skills, so we will all look forward to seeing what he’s got for us in Vegas. If nothing else, his talent and all of the drama that come with him will be worth watching!

Alright, I’m headed out the door to Vegas – Should be a blast! C-you there….. Duane

BBR Knocks Itself Off

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:09:00 +0000

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Most of us here at BBR have young kids (or nieces and nephews) that are at the perfect age to really enjoy Christmas and the holidays. We have a big Christmas party every year for the employees, venders, and family. We have an employee smorgasbord with everyone's favorite food and catch up with what's gone on all year. Some years we rent an indoor riding facility and pound each other into the ground in celebration of Christmas. Other years, we have had Moto Santa ride in and hand out motorcycle toys to all the kids. Anyways, Christmas is a fun time of year at BBR. I hope it is for you too.

Rumors have circulated for several years that BBR is working on its own production motorcycle. Certainly, we have built thousands of motorcycles over the years. But, those have always been custom bikes built to the whims of a particular customer. We’re finally ready to start talking about it. The goal is to build an affordable BBR production bike. A bike that is manufactured in large quantities to keep the price down, but is worthy of the BBR name. This would be a bike our customers and dealers can be proud of, and not make excuses for! We have been all over the planet in our quest to "do it right". Trust me; you can do it wrong, and others have proven that. In many ways, we have become the complaint center for "knock-off bikes". Want to know what’s wrong with brand “X” knock-off bike? Just ask our sales guys. The disgruntled customers call us to complain and hope we’ll fix it for them. For example, when one popular brand of knock-off started breaking swingarms, we had dozens of people call us hoping we’d make a better swingarm that wouldn’t break!

There is not a single knock off bike out there that hasn’t shown up on our loading dock (some with BBR stickers on them) with the manufacturer begging us to sell them. We have flown to the factories and checked them out (you probably saw the pictures on the internet forums). All it would take is a single phone call and we could have any number of Chinese bikes with our name on it, delivered to our front door. That would be easy, especially when our dealers and customers are demanding an affordable bike. Actually, who cares where it's made? We'd go to China in a minute if we thought they could build and assemble a whole bike for us to our standards and yours. Maybe someday this will be a good option. But after riding every knock-off bike out there (a lot more than I wanted to) we found this still isn't the best option. Don't get me wrong, for $3,000 some of these bikes aren't bad. Especially when there is no other option; we feel your pain and hear you. But in the long run, selling a disposable bike wouldn’t work out for any of us. The motorcycle world (and everybody that has supported us over the years) is counting on us to do this right. Look how many of the knock-off companies have come and gone. If you could pay a little more and have it done right the first time, with a friendly knowledgeable staff backing it up, with every part in stock, with the best riders in the world doing the testing,... that would be the dream wouldn’t it? Are we still going to build one-off, unlimited budget, hand-carved from a block of aluminum bikes? Of course! That's who we are, and that is what our customers expect from us. The only difference is now, customers can have an affordable starting point if they want,...much like Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, etc. do with their race bikes. They have a production bike that can be modified by their race team or by their customers into a full factory works bike over time.

The bike is done, but we're still shooting photos and wrapping up the boring paperwork and legal matters that go with it. I can't tell you everything about the bike right now (the rest of the BBR guys would kill me), but I can leak a few things 'till it pops up on our web site in the next few days. The first and the most important thing is the bike was 100% designed, engineered, and tested at BBR. We didn’t pick a single existing part out of a book. We developed and tested every part with the same designers and test riders that we’ve used on our BBR USA race team bikes. We know how to build great competition motorcycles and no corner was cut to develop this bike. Second, the production bike is going to be completely assembled at our facility right here in the U.S. This lets us insure several things. Since we are going to be assembling parts that are manufactured for us by our partners from around the world, we can individually inspect every part before it goes on your bike. Another reason for assembling the production bike here is we are not forced to rely on one factory or one country to build an entire bike. Basically, we are not putting all of our eggs in one basket. We are having parts made in Italy, Japan, Taiwan, China, and of course the U.S. All are venders we have used in the past we know we can trust to do it right! Finally, the last thing I can tell you is that every part on our bike will interchange with our current products. No goofy spokes, cheap bolts, odd-sized foot pegs, or incorrect dimensions. We’ll have replacement parts in stock the day these bikes start shipping. The bike will be on display at the Indy trade show and at Mini Moto, so swing by and check it out. We should have pictures on our website in the next couple of days so hang on! I think you will be as excited as we are! Here's a sneak peek at the bike:

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past comes from Mini Moto Magazine and our friends that started it; Tim, Melinda, and Cindy Clark. Timmy Wiegand is on the cover in route to one of his many Langtown wins. This was one of the last races ever held at Langtown. All good things must come to an end but sometimes not a happy end. There are so many great stories, races, and bikes that came out of Langtown over the years and most of them have been told in the media or right here. None of them are exaggerations. This was a truly great race.

Bob and Linda Langin put the race on for twenty consecutive years putting up with egos, the media, and the neighbors'. I can't believe they got away with it for so long! Anyone who has ever put on a race knows how hard it is. Try putting one on at your house (I'm sure your wife will go for it…)! Anyway, the county came in with their red tape, wet land, spotted turtle, and (insert global buzz-word-of-the-day here) and closed down the single most fun race in America!

The thing I remember most about the last Langtown wasn’t the race itself, but the phone call I got the day after. It was from a guy who said his dream was to meet Bob Langin and see his track and wondered if I had his phone number. I told him I couldn’t give it out, but I was happy to call Bob and tell him to call this guy back. The guy seemed a little irritated so I asked him what kind of bikes he had and he really couldn’t name any. It didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t talking to a motorcycle guy. I told him I would give Bob a ring and pass along his phone number. I called Bob the next day and told him about the guy but Bob said he had already shown up on his door step. He was from one of the knock-off bike companies and wanted to use the Langtown name on one of his piles of crap. Bob, being the nice guy he is, sent him nicely on his way. I broke the news to Bob that he was going to have to trademark the Langtown name or it would be whored out. $5000 later and a stack of paperwork, that would make any government official proud, Bob owned his own name.

When we showed up at the Indy Trade Show the next year, the bike was there in all its glory. Displayed in Chinese row, there was the BBR 150 Langtown replica complete with its red, white and blue graphics. Luckily for Bob, the bike didn’t say Langtown on it but it did have prism “BBE” graphics with red checks. Of course, these guys are fooling no one and any publicity is good publicity. That said, I guess we got plenty that year! The bike was really bad (even by Chinese knock-off standards). I’m sure that no one had ever actually ridden it. I doubt it would start and run let alone move under its own power. It was a bad way for Langtown to end, but not even Big Brother or a Chinese knock-off bike can take away from all of the great memories of racing in Bob’s back yard.

10/12/2008

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:42:00 +0000

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! It has been crazier than ever around here. We are gearing up for Christmas and are offering 10% off all online orders today (Friday 10/12/2008) through Sunday the 14th! Hope this helps!

Jesus’ birthday is almost here so if you are going to do a bike build as a gift – you’d better get on it (even if it really is for you!). We need 3-5 days to ship it to you, so factor that in (we don’t want to work late on Christmas Eve this year, but we will!)

Question of the Week

Hi guys, I had a quick question about my fifty. I seem to get one flat after another – even with heavy duty tubes. What is the trick to eliminate flats?

The key is air pressure. The smaller the wheel the more air pressure you need to run. The standard on big bikes is 12- 15lbs depending on the track conditions. On most fifties and even some 110s we run a minimum of twenty pounds. On a bone stock fifty we run thirty plus, with an adult, or you can count on exploding the back wheel. Make sure you are running a rim lock at least in the back. It is cheap insurance against tearing the valve out of the tube. Also we leave the nut loose on the valve stem so the valve can slide down in the rim a little bit if the tire does slip on the rim. Hope this helps – Duane

Blast from the Past

Alright, this week’s blast from the past comes from the August 2000 issue of Dirt Rider Magazine. Our buddies over there at the time (Ken Faught, Karl Kramer, and Dick Burleson) invited us down to the Dirt Rider 24hr shootout. We brought a 2000 YZ125 with a TTR225 engine stuffed into it and a 2000 CR125 with a punched out XR250 engine stuffed into it. There were two things that stick out in my mind about this test: The first was how tired I was after riding for nearly twenty four hours. Hey, when all of your heroes are in one place, riding on the same course, you would ride all night too! The second thing I remember is bending a valve on the TTR five minutes after we arrived for the photo shoot (the day before the actual 24 hr shootout). Somehow when I was goofing around warming the bike up and checking the track out I over revved the bike and mashed the piston into the intake valve. We pulled the head off and saw the bent over valve and thought we were finished. I called Chaparral to see if they had a valve on the shelf and they did. We ran across town and grabbed the valve and then had to find a machine shop to re-cut the damaged valve seat. By the time we had the valve in hand all the machine shops in the area were closed. We decided to take a chance and sleep in the truck, in front of a foreign car machine shop, in hopes they would have the right sized valve cutter. Our gamble paid off. The shop cut the head and we were back on the road headed for the event. We put the head back on, fired the bike up, and let some of the best riders in the world beat the bike for 24hrs without a hiccup.

The CR/XR300 was also one of my favorite off-road bikes we ever built. The engine was real torquey with a big flywheel feel and really chugged along. The chassis was state of the art Honda stuff for the time. Great bike! Even by today’s standards. Imagine if you could by a cheap, perimeter framed, motocross suspended, air-cooled, 300cc four stroke play bike that was easy to work on and maintain! Click on the image to read the whole story:

The blog is a little short this round, but I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for helping us live the dream - Duane

TTR125 and CRF/XR100

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Good news! BBR’s online ordering is up and running! You can officially order BBR parts during off hours, the weekend or in the middle of the night if you need to. It’s great to see how many people have already tried it out. I spent the last couple years restoring a Plymouth Barracuda with my family and became a big fan of online ordering. Can’t tell you how many times I was deep into the project when I realized I was missing a seal, a bolt or some special part. I would simply run to the computer and get it on its way – any time of the day or night! I hope BBR’s online ordering works out just as well for you. Of course, we still have the best phone staff in the industry if you prefer to order over the phone.

Okay, this week we want to talk about the CRF/XR100 and the TT-R125. We get a lot of questions asking what are the “must have” parts are for these bikes. They make a great playbike, girlfriend bike, or kid’s bikes, and are a total blast in the back yard with your buddies.

At the top of the list of must have items is the frame cradle. Both bikes are designed so the engine is a stress-member of the frame. If you jump too high or put too much stress on the frame, the engine cases will break at the motor mount bolts. Then you have an expensive mess to fix! The cradle helps support the frame and engine as well as protecting the underside of your motor.
The second must have item are the BBR fork and shock springs. Both bikes come set up for beginning kids with super soft spring rates. By adding the springs it helps to hold the bike up into the softer part of the travel, plus they help eliminate bottoming (which is a dirt bike’s worst enemy). A tip you can use when installing the fork springs is to install them one at a time. If you put one in and the forks are still not stiff enough, then install the second one. Usually, on the TTR and the CRF100 you can run the stock 10 weight oil. For bigger or faster riders we like to switch to 20 or even 30 weight oil to slow the rebound and compression down from the heavier fork springs. Make sure to not use more oil than is specified in the owner’s manual. Too much oil can cause hydraulic lock resulting in blown fork seals.
The third most important item is the chain guide. Both of these bikes are notorious for blowing the chain off and breaking a hole through the cases. That makes for a long day. Our chain guides literally guide the chain onto the sprocket helping prevent a thrown chain.
Fourth on the list is the big bore kit. Both kits come with everything you need for easy installation including a complete cylinder, piston, cam, and gaskets. A big bore kit is more work than some of the other mods, but the payoff is worth it. If you don’t feel comfortable installing these kits, most local motorcycle shops can handle it for you.
On the TTR125 motor, it is almost mandatory that you run the Free-Flow filter with the bore kit or pipe. It uses a huge (compared to stock) UNI air filter and comes with a new filter backing plate (contoured for high air flow). Horsepower increase is better than ½ horsepower on almost any TTR125.
Fifth on the list is the exhaust system. Both bikes come about as corked-up as they can get away with and still run. BBR makes its new D2 exhaust system for both bikes that lets them rev-out much farther. When choosing an exhaust be careful what you buy. Of course, we recommend our own exhaust because we have a huge amount of R&D time developing the best mini-bike exhausts in the world. We continue to refine these pipes even after they’re in production.
Alright, that is the top five or so. BBR makes lots of other products for these two great bikes, including the perimeter frame kit, so feel free to check them all out on our product pages. I've included part numbers and links to all these products below.

CRF/XR100
Cradle 320-HXR-1011
Fork Springs 650-HXR-1005
Shock Spring 660-HXR-1005
Chain Guide 340-HXR-1011
120 Bore Kit 411-HXR-1001
D2 Exhaust 205-HXR-1031

TTR 125
Free Flow 430-YTR-1201
Cradle 321-YTR-1231
Fork Springs 650-YTR-1205
Shock Spring 660-YTR-1205
Chain Guide 340-YTR-1211
150 Bore Kit 411-YTR-1201
D2 Exhaust 205-YTR-1231

Question of the Week

You guys are the kings of the 150 so I thought I would ask you this: Which is a better bike, the CRF150R or the CRF150F? I am going to be trail riding and doing an occasional race/poker run plus my girlfriend wants to ride the bike once in a while.

This is a tough one. If you are going to be racing a bunch and need maximum horsepower and suspension, then the R is for you. These bikes ride very similar to a two- stroke race 85. They make their best power screaming at 12 thousand rpm. If you are going to be trail riding and riding in tight stuff you can’t beat the electric start and soft suspension of the F model. The F model is super torquey and likes to be short shifted. Think of the F as fun and the R as race. When I go riding with my friends and family up in the woods I always take the F. If I am headed to the track I load up the R and have a blast in the vet class. The other thing to consider is the cost of maintenance. The F is virtually indestructible while the R is going to require some service to keep its 12 thousand RPM engine singing…..Hope this helps – Duane

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past comes from the guys at MXA. In the July 2003 issue they had us build the trickest stock framed TTR 125 possible. Check out the article by clicking on the photo right here:

That’s it for this week – Keep in touch – call if you have any questions – and as always thanks for helping us live the dream! Duane

Jetting 101

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Alright, it’s been a crazy few weeks here at BBR! Screwy-Dilla 2008 went off, I almost electrocuted myself (to the delight of our employees), and I blew my ears out to the new AC/DC Black Ice disc! Screwy-Dilla was a blast as always. Any time you get to go to a race in someone’s backyard, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, you know you are going to have a good time! Screwy has kind of backed it off over the years. A few years ago, he had 2500+ people show up, but the neighbors and the whining riders got to him. Now it is a South Sound Honda ride day. Their customers get to test ride all of the new models and Screwy gets to have over some friends to play-ride on mini-bikes and have a BBQ. To see more check out the video right here:

Man did I feel old this week! In the early days of BBR we used to have AC/DC Friday out in the shop. We would fill the disc player up and blow the windows out. We haven’t done it for years, so when I heard they were coming out with a new CD I figured we would relive the “good old days at BBR”. I had to go to Wal-Mart and stand in line with all the other old guys. If that wasn’t enough, by the time I got to work my ears were bleeding! It was too loud so I must be too old. I am officially “that guy” I have been making fun of for the last twenty years! Oh well, at least I never owned a mini van!

Have you ever wired a kill button backwards? I assumed that I must have at least once in my life - but apparently not. I was putting a Tokyo-Mods ignition on a fifty the other day when I made the shocking mistake. I fired the bike up and it was purring like a kitten until I touched the levers and grounded out! Now I have been shocked good a few times over the years by things like car ignitions and welders - but never anything like this. I could feel the electricity go up my arms, up my neck, and out my ears! I’ll tell you what; I was wide awake after that. I can also tell you that it won’t happen twice! Of course, everybody in the shop thought it was hysterical.

O.K. lets get to it. This week’s subject is jetting. We get a dozen calls (and e-mails) everyday from people trying to get the jetting right on their bike. I must start by saying that there is no one magic jetting spec for every engine and carb. Every single rider on our race team runs different jetting specs to fit their riding style, even if the motors are the same. Some riders hold it wide open all the time so they don’t care what the power is doing towards the middle or bottom, they just need maximum flow on the top-end. Other guys short shift the bike and never rev it out so they don’t care what the power is doing when the throttle is wide open. Then there are the kids - they usually need the bike to idle and they tend to snap the throttle wide open instantly so they need a different jetting spec. In addition, jetting is also drastically affected by weather, temperature, elevation, octane rating, compression, pipe diameter, exhaust back-pressure, air filter flow, points gap, electronic curve on the CDI box, cam profile, etc. It’s endless. Don’t get frustrated. Anybody with a little patience can get their bike jetted correctly for their own riding style and location.

First, make certain that everything is working as it is meant to. Use a new spark plug, make sure the carb jets are not clogged (can you see light through them?), and use good, fresh gas. On an old bike you need to make sure the needle, the nozzle, and the slide aren’t simply worn out. We’ve seen some XR80s where the carb was actually worn out from use. You’ll never get the bike to run if these simple things aren’t right to start with.

We know that many of our customers understand jetting very well, but since it is a tricky subject for many people, let’s take a minute to go over the basics of the carb, and what each adjustment does to see if we can make this easier to understand. There are three main circuits in the carb that are used for tuning: (1.) the pilot/slow jet, (2.) the needle and clip, and (3.) the main jet. The pilot jet/slow jet affects the very bottom end of the power curve or up to the ¼ throttle open setting. This jet is located under the float-bowl and is the small jet that sits right next to the main jet in the center of most carbs. The pilot/slow jet has a number stamped on the side (usually in the 15-50 range depending on carb size and brand). If the bike is slow to warm up or stumbles right off idle when you snap the throttle, the pilot/slow jet is probably too small (lean - not enough gas). If the bike burbles and chugs like the choke is on right off of idle, then the pilot/slow jet is probably too big (rich – too much gas). The next adjustment in the carb is the needle and clip. The needle height adjustment affects the midrange part of the power curve, or the half-open throttle setting. The needle is located on the slide. To get to the needle- just unscrew the carb top (where the throttle cable goes in) and pull it out. You will see the slide and needle. To get to the needle just pull the slide spring back and disconnect the cable from the slide.

On most slides there is a retaining clip spring that holds the needle and clip down in the slide. Simply pop it out and the needle will slide out. Once the needle is in hand you will see there is a clip (on most carbs) that is snapped into a grove at the top of the needle. By raising the clip, you are lowering the needle, letting less gas down thru the main jet (making the engine run leaner). If you lower the clip you are raising the needle, and letting more gas run throught the main jet (causing the engine to run richer). The needle overlaps both the pilot/slow jet and the main jet, so it gets a little tricky when it comes to adjustment. Usually, I will richen the needle (lower the clip) when installing an aftermarket exhaust, or if the weather is cold out, to send more gas to the engine. If I am installing a quiet pipe, quiet core, or the weather is hot, I will lean (raise the clip) to send less gas to the engine. On some of the new little 4-strokes there is no adjustment on the needle (environmental wackos gone mad). In that case, you will have to order an older needle, cut your own grooves, or stack washers under the needle to adjust it. I sure hope you don’t kill some spotted bug in doing so. If you really want to go crazy, you can also buy different needle sizes that affect midrange jetting. The fatter the needle, the leaner it will run. The thinner the needle, the richer it will run. If you compare different needles you will see varying tapers and diameters. Experimentation is the key to getting this needle setting correct.

The third adjustment is the main jet. The main jet primarily affects ¾ to wide open throttle settings, and is located under the float bowl right in the middle. On some carbs, there is a nut under the float bowl you can remove to get to the main jet without removing the carb from the bike. The main jet will have a number stamped on it, usually from about 90 to 200 depending on carb and application. To be accurate, the main jet really overlaps the pilot/slow jet and the needle affecting the whole circuit. If the bike will not rev out cleanly all the way up to higher rpm’s, then 99% of the time the main jet is too rich – yes too rich! If the main jet is too lean, the bike will rev out cleanly but have a big cough off of idle because the whole jetting circuit is too lean. Start with the biggest main that will let the bike rev all the way out, and then work your way backwards.

O.K. we have covered how to swap the jets. Let’s talk about how to adjust the fuel mixture screw. Most of the time, the stock setting works fine. Depending on the carb, most are set at -¼ to 2 turns out counter clockwise. People act like this is some major carb adjustment, but on these small 4-strokes it doesn’t do much. To get it adjusted properly, just fire the bike up and turn it out until you get the highest idle possible, then go back 1/8-turn and call it good. Basically, this screw adds air to the pilot jet. If you have to go more than 2-turns, you probably have the wrong size pilot jet.

Let’s go over a few more basic jetting tips now that you know how to make the basic adjustments. Race gas and high octane gas effect jetting as much as anything. 4-strokes do not generally like high octane gas. Think of it this way - the higher the octane number, the slower the gas burns. The smaller the octane number, the hotter it burns. You want the smallest octane number possible without allowing the engine to ping or rattle. If you take a stock KLX 110 that runs fine on 92 octane and switch to 112 high octane race gas, it is going to go slower because the gas is burning slower. Now if you do have a high compression motor that runs hot, you will need to run race gas to cool it off. On a typical engine that runs fine on 92 octane, you will need to drop about ten sizes on the main jet when switching to 100 plus octane or it will feel like you are riding with the choke on. A quick way you can tell if you are too rich or too lean is to pull the choke lever on half way while riding. If the bike runs better, you are too lean and need to go richer/bigger on the jets. If it runs worse, then go leaner/smaller. This is a good test for the bottom to mid-range jetting.

Jetting with a new pipe: If you are going to switch to a bigger pipe, it is always a good idea to switch to a larger filter or the bike will tend to be extremely hard to jet. A good example would be a bike like the TT-R125 which has a tiny stock air filter and pipe. If you just switch the pipe it will only be flowing more air and gas at the back side of the engine flow. If you swap to a bigger filter, you can increase the jet sizes and flow more air, fuel, and exhaust to get the power gains you are after.

Jetting for cold or hot weather: If you are going from 65 degree weather to 100 degree weather (like we do when we go to Vegas every year) you can expect to lower or lean out your main jet 10 sizes. Similarly, if you go from 80 degrees in the summer down to 30 degrees in the winter, you are going to have to go bigger on at least the main jet - probably ten sizes or more (just to give you an idea).

Hope this helps with your jetting questions. Please remember, these are only the basics of carb jetting as I see it. Advanced jetting can involve changing nozzles, slide cutaways, carb bore diameters, etc. But don’t be afraid to jump in and give it a shot. Once you ride a perfectly jetted bike, there is no going back. And until fuel injection arrives for all bikes, getting to know jetting is well worth the effort. To make things easier we've put together a Jetting Chart that contains many of the common combinations of bikes and performance parts. It can be found in our Tech/FAQ section along with a 1998 Dirt Bike magazine article on jetting.

Mikuni also has a great jetting manual you can check out here:

http://www.mikuni.com/pdf/vmmanual.pdf

In addition, we have a streaming video that shows an example of how to install and jet an 18mm carb kit you can see here:

Question of the Week

Can I fit a YZ80 flatslide carb on my XR100. Andy

Anything can be done – look at all of the crazy stuff we have mixed together over the years! But we haven’t had much luck putting two stroke carbs on 4-strokes (especially flat slide models). Every part inside them, from air flow to needle taper, is designed around the two stroke. It is best to purchase an aftermarket carb that is tested to fit the bike you are working on. BBR, of course, has many options. If you are looking for an inexpensive option, you may want to start by finding a carb off a 4-stroke the next model size up from the bike you are working on. That will give you a larger starting point for a carb, and will provide for more top end flow. Hope this helps – Duane

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past comes from the November 1998 issue of Four Stroke Dirt Bikes. Mark Karia made a few issues of the magazine in between freelancing for Dirt Rider and Cycle News in the 90s. Mark flew up and spent a couple of days with us when we were working out of our parent’s backyard shop. Those were some fun times. We had a dozen bikes, three acres, and rode around the clock in those days (I guess we still do). Can’t believe the neighbors still talk to our parents. Looking back, we realize why all of my parent’s neighbors were so willing to help us move out to our new shop.
The second article is from Motocross Journal, August 2000 (BBR perimeter framed TT-R 125). There is actually a funny story about this photo shoot……We loaded up the BBR trailer and headed to California for the White Bros Four Stroke World Championships. The day before the race, the guys at Hi-Torque Publishing (MXA, Dirt Bike, Motocross Journal) wanted us to swing by. We were working with Suzuki on a DRZ400 and Hi-Torque wanted photos of our prototype bike before it got hammered at the race. When we arrived, we gave the DRZ one last check over before the photo shoot. I noticed we had forgotten to put the Maxxis stickers on the tires (you know, the bright orange ones you see on all the tires on the factory bikes). At that time we were in deep with Maxxis so we wanted to make sure they were taken care of, and we were proudly displaying the new Maxxis tires on the DRZ prototype. I yelled to one of our guys to get the tire decals on the DRZ in a hurry before the shoot, and then I went with Jody and the MXA guys to the photo studio. When we got back, Jimmy Mac from Motocross Journal said he also took some shots of our TT-R for a future issue. I said awesome!, and we loaded the bikes up and took off for the race. When the magazine showed up three months later, our TT-R125 Race Bike was the main feature, and was spread across the centerfold in all its glory – There was only one little problem…..Dunlop tires with Maxxis stickers! At the time Maxxis didn’t make 16”-19” big wheel sized tires so we had to run the Dunlops on the TT-R’s. One of our race team guys apparently didn’t know this and thought he was doing us all a favor by putting the Maxxis tire decals on ALL of our bikes. Maybe nobody would notice? Needless to say, our phone rang off the hook,.. Motocross Journal’s phone rang,.. Dunlop’s phone rang,..and Maxxis’ phone rang! Nobody thought it was quite as funny as we did. Thank goodness there were no internet forums at the time. It would have been a full-on conspiracy! Anyway, it’s a great article, and our good friend, Rich Taylor, went on to win the 150cc world championships on the TT-R the day after this picture was taken. Enjoy!
O.K., that’s it for this week. Thanks for all the great feedback and stories about the XR75 blog. Sounds like the whole world was riding them! Thanks for helping us live the dream!

Duane

Honda's XR75

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Alright, let’s talk about my favorite bike - the XR75. This one bike has had more impact on mini bikes (and my life in general) than any other bike ever made. Honda introduced the XR75 in 1973 and found worldwide success. In the 70’s, motocross was becoming huge in the United States. There were motocross tracks everywhere and you could ride almost anywhere you wanted. In grade school, I remember half of the kids rode or raced motocross, and the majority of them had XR75s. It took me and my brothers a little longer than most to come up with our first XR, but we were persistent. Chris, Brent and I were heavily into BMX racing and our parents weren’t ready to make the shift to MX just yet. Each of us had a few expensive BMX bikes, a sidehack, go-karts, and a number of other toys that were keeping our parents on the edge. Plenty of hours were spent riding friends and neighbor’s XR’s, but ours somehow eluded us.

Our cousin, Brian, owned a BMX/Motorcycle shop (N.K. Cycle) in Poulsbo, WA. Every year we would make an annual trek to check out the latest BMX parts and ride his trick XR’s. As a matter of fact, the first time I ever heard the word “trick” was at his shop in the 70’s. One of the times we went to visit Brian he had a ‘77 DG package racer XR75 with all of the trick parts for the time. It had a Powroll 116 stroker motor, gold DG everything, Fox shocks, and Betor forks. It was almost too much for a twelve year old to comprehend. That was it! I was going to build an XR no matter what. Since I had access to BMX bikes, but not to a bunch of money, I figured I could trade my way into my dream ride. We put the word out in our Junior High school that we were looking to trade for an XR75. It didn’t take long. One of our buddies had just gotten a new YZ80, so he was willing to trade his XR75 for a DG Rooster BMX bike. We loaded the bicycle up and headed to his house to make the swap. When we arrived we found a gray 1974 XR with a DG pipe. Perfect. With the XR safely in our garage the real fun began. We immediately disassembled it and painted it red. I remember jumping on my JMC BMX bike and riding down to Ace Hardware to buy a can of Krylon red spray paint. The plan was to make the bike look like Marty Smith’s factory Honda before unveiling it to the neighbor kids. Other than eating a set of points that first day, and having the neighbor yell at us for making too much noise, it was a glorious day. It didn’t take long before every kid in the neighborhood had a motorcycle. Some of the best races I have ever been in occurred on that residential neighborhood track.

At our BMX shop, we used to carry a magazine called Minicycle/BMXaction that had all of the cool parts and stories from the day. There were tons of companies making parts for the little XR. Jeff Ward’s dad had a company called J.W.R.P. They made frames, swingarms, pipes, ignitions, etc. Red Line Engineering also made a frame early on for the XR75 (before BMX consumed them). Dave Miller, of DMC fame, had a company called Miller Mano that cranked out some super trick one-off XR parts. There was also PK Racing, the Vulcan Bros, Burnsworth Racing, and of course DG Performance. DG was the king of all things aftermarket for MX. They made a monoshock frame and swingarm for the XR, plus they carried every imaginable hop-up part ranging from seats, to heads, and forks. DG had every part you could want, and made each one of them cool. All of the best riders of the day rode for DG and used their products. You couldn’t go anywhere in the 70’s without seeing a DG logo. Somebody at DG was a marketing genius and had a huge passion for all things MX. My brothers and I respected that a lot. Here's a DG catalog page from 1978 (courtesy http://www.vintagefactory.com/)

When the two stroke MX bikes started taking over in the late 1970’s, Honda started selling the XR75 as a playbike. The after market companies that continued to produce parts for the XR75 started gearing their items toward adults and the playbike market. Eventually, the two-strokes completely took over the racing scene, and the BBR brothers followed. I caved in and bought a 1979 YZ80 to keep my racing dream alive, and we soon owned a stable of two-strokes. But just like many of the racers, we continued to ride XR’s in the backyard for fun. Chris was always more interested in play riding, so he upgraded to a 1978 XR75. He saved his money, and bought all of the latest DG performance parts that were available at the time, and did every modification possible. At some point, he decided he was going to build a complete single shock frame for his XR, so at the age of twelve, with no one telling him he couldn’t do it, he started on the frame in Junior High shop class. It was a two year long project that we both worked on together, but Chris was the one who kept pushing until it was completed. I will admit that I gave up a few times along the way. When I went off to High School the next year, I had machine shop class which gave me access to a milling machine for the first time. Chris gave me some drawings of a linkage setup he was working on for the bike. After two weeks of class, the teacher (Don Sharp) thought we were ready to start working with the shop equipment. He showed the class the “sheetmetal box” project that we would all be working on for the rest of the quarter. I raised my hand and said, “Hey, can we work on our own stuff?” He laughed and asked, “What do you have in mind?” “I want to make a linkage for a motorcycle me and my brothers are working on”. I showed him the drawing and he just laughed at me. “Boeing couldn’t make that set up”, he said. “It is too complicated”. So I told him that it would sure be a better project than just a sheetmetal box! Amazingly, he let me work on it. I spent the next year working on that linkage setup. That is when I realized I could crank out billet parts. It took more than a few tries, but by the end of the year I felt like I could make anything. When Chris showed up for high school machine shop the next year, the teacher didn’t bother asking him if he wanted to make a sheetmetal box. He just let us do our thing. I worked on the billet stuff, and Chris started to focus on the frame and motor. Even though Brent was in college then, he showed up for class a few times to make some parts. He would tell the shop teacher that he was a “new student”, and then would work with us. I think Brent is the only person in history to get high-school detention without even being a real high-school student. Too funny!

Once the frame and linkage were complete we needed a shock, so we gave the guys at Works Performance a call and they cranked one out for us, to our specs. Chris sprayed the frame with some left over Plymouth R6 red paint from Brent’s drag-car, and then Brent pinstriped the frame 70’s style to finish it off. When the bike was complete, we loaded it up and headed out to our local track (S.I.R.) to race it. This was the first time I remember running into mini-dads. I had never heard so much whining in my life about rules, points, and inspections, etc. I lined up on the gate with 39 yellow two strokes, and me on the lone red 4-stroke. I ended up going 6/5 for sixth overall. I remember being a little disappointed, but looking back it was a small miracle. Show me a couple of kids that built their own bike from scratch, raced it, and put thirty other guys behind them. Check out the video of the bike here:

We never stopped riding and modifying XR75’s. When they morphed into the XR80 and 100, it just gave us more to work with. Eventually, the whole movement moved into the Langtown/ScrewyDilla type backyard races (which is a whole story by itself). As big as these races, and several others, became it just goes to show that the whole country was riding XR’s for fun. As we got older and were racing big bikes, we would continue to ride XR’s in the back yard as much as we could. There was a time when you could pick a decent XR up at a garage sale or swap meet for a hundred bucks. Usually you could just swap out the points and they ran like new. At one point, our parent’s backyard shop looked like an XR junkyard. People were just showing up and dropping off XR’s or abandoning them on our backyard track. At last count we had been through more than two hundred of them! As a matter of fact we are still going through XR’s – We just got a 2009 CRF100 last week (which is just an updated XR100). In our spare time, we like to restore all of the old rare XR’s, and related parts, that we could only dream about back in the day. A lot of the fun of the restoration is the hunt to find the old bikes and parts. If you have any old XR parts or vintage BMX parts you want to sell, trade, or donate to the BBR show-room, please drop us an email at ‘sales@bbrmotorsports.com’.

OK, for all you XR nuts out there, here are a few of the rare XR75’s we have restored over the years:

The first one is the Holy Grail of XR75's…The Jeff Ward Racing Products 1975 XR75. It has a chrome-moly frame and swingarm, Curnut shocks, 82cc piston, J.W.R.P. cam and ignition, 22mm carb, Akront rims, CR125 side plates, and the famous 3x number.

The second bike is a 1976 Red Line Engineering XR75. It has a nickel plated chrome-moly frame and swingarm, Ceriani forks and clamps, 17” front wheel, P.K. Racing ignition and 82cc piston, DG pipe, Mini-Mudder front fender, and Pro-Tec chain guide.

The third bike is a 1974 DG mono-shock XR75. It has a gold cad-plated chrome-moly frame and mono-shock swingarm, Luft shock, Vulcan Bros. forks, DG Performance piston, head, cam, and porting, 22mm carb, J.W.R.P. ignition, DG pipe, and DG valve cover.

The fourth bike is a 1978 DG package racer. It has a DG chro-moly frame, DG gold anodized swingarm, Fox 13.5” air shocks, Betor forks and clamps, D.I.D. gold rims, Duck-bill front fender, Powroll piston and cam, Answer mini bars, J.T. Supercross number plate, and DG up-pipe.

The fifth bike is a bone stock 1978 XR75. This bike was assembled about 10 years ago from N.O.S. parts when you could still get them from Honda. We ordered every part number for an XR75 and almost everything showed up. Basically, this a brand new bike one bolt at a time.

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past comes from the March/April 2006 issue of Pit Racer magazine with Jeff Hain and the gang. On the last page of every issue they did a column called Classic Pit Racer. They did a feature on our Red Line XR75 that was stolen a few years back. It was stolen by some “victim of society” who has been “dealt a bad hand” and for whom “the government isn’t doing enough to help”, and has been “repressed by the man” and whose “parents do not love him”. He hooked a chain to the front door and pulled the whole front of the BBR shop off (guess he is good at something). He then cut a cable that was strung through a dozen bikes and stole the Red Line XR. Can’t blame him for wanting it, I guess, but it seems his method of getting one is a little different than how we would do it. It was heartbreaking to know it was gone, and we have not seen it since. We found another Red Line XR years later, that you heard about earlier in this story, but I had to trade my first born for it. Pit Racer also covered one of the DG Monoshock XR’s we had a few years ago. It is now part of a vintage collection in northern California.

I also found this great Jeff Ward XR75 article in Motocross Journal from Jimmy Mac and the gang. This bike is sitting in the Primm Museum. If you ever get a chance to visit them in Las Vegas, it is one of the most incredible places in the MX industry.

Question of the Week

“I see you guys are into XR75s. Do you sell parts for them or know where I can get some? I’m restoring a ‘73 XR75, and am having problems finding everything I need to complete the project.” Barney (in Tucson)

Hey Barney, love the ‘73 with the duel red stripes on the tank. We really don’t sell anything for the XR75’s but there are some good companies that we have run into over the years that do. At the top of the list is Scott Steger over at http://www.vintagefactory.com/. Scott is the king of vintage bike restoration and nobody has more fun and passion doing it than Scott and his crew. If you have a complete bike you want to send off to have restored, Vintage Factory is the place. Check out his great website for cool old vintage photos, a swap meet, and streaming videos. Scott also has almost every vintage sticker you can imagine, so check his site out. Another great place to find all of the little detail items that separate an amateur restoration from a show winner can be found at http://www.re-mx.com/. They have gas caps, levers, seats, etc, and they are friendly guys. Another great company for performance parts for the XR75 are http://www.xrminiracer.com/. Alex, the owner, has been racing and riding XR75’s in SoCal from the beginning. He has all of your favorite pipes from back in the day and many more items. Check ‘em out. Last but not least is http://www.powroll.com/. These guys have been at it since before I was born and are still making XR75’s go fast. Give “Powroll Pam” a call and she will hook you up with the right parts. Hope this helps! Duane

OK, that’s it for this week. Thanks for helping us live the dream!

Duane

New Product Development

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:08:00 +0000

Let’s talk product development this week. I remember when we first started BBR, and being a young, broke, (and dumb) college student. I was trying to race motocross and I couldn’t figure out why everything cost so much in the motorcycle world. How could a works Honda cost 100 thousand dollars? There was no more metal in David Bailey’s works bike than in my stock 1986 CR250. Also, why didn’t the aftermarket companies make the parts I really wanted, in the color my buddies and I wanted them in? Well, growing the business at BBR has definitely given me, and my brothers, a crash course in reality. Trying to please the public, ourselves, and the racers is not as easy as it looks. I remember thinking that if I was in charge, I would just build the best parts all the time and the rest would take care of itself. I have come to learn that making the best parts on the planet is the easy part. Balancing the needs of the vendors, employees, media, advertising, R&D, market trends, all have an effect on what gets made and how it gets priced at BBR. Passion can only take you so far.

I get calls from time to time from people asking how we come up with so many new and unique items. When you ride and race as much as we do, the products almost invent themselves. Some products are more obvious than others. Any adult who jumps on a 50 can tell you that it needs taller bars. Anyone who has ever put a big bore kit onto a KLX 110 can tell you it needs a D-comp cam or a forged output shaft to stay in one piece. Every part evolves from a need in the industry. I will let Chris take it from here since he has designed and developed a good portion of the BBR products over the years:

There are many great new product ideas out there. We like to think that we come up with our fair share of them for our industry and it is always fun to see the many other great ideas that are developed in the MX world. But many people just see the finished product, and don’t even think of all the work that goes into the development of the product, and what it takes to bring it to the market. Anybody who’s ever picked up a wrench (even the lowly crescent wrench) has thought about something they would/could/should build. We get 4 or 5 people a month who show up with some idea that they think will change the world. Just cruise the internet forums and you’ll see dozens of ideas. Many are great ideas that are impossible to build. Others are rehashes of something somebody else did 10 or 15 years ago. Many ideas we see are nothing more than drawings. Drawing a part is (maybe) 1% of the process. If it is a napkin or pencil drawing, then it’s more like 1/2%. The process of taking the idea from the napkin to the market is very complicated, and takes much more than a great idea.

At BBR, new products generally start with Duane (or somebody else in the shop) riding and noticing something that needs changed. Sometimes it is nothing more than that an existing OEM part feels weird. Sometimes we break a part and know it needs a change. Sometimes we stumble onto some performance gain in a weird way. Other times we go after a performance gain by redesigning a part. Anyway, the idea isn’t the hard part. We have hundreds of great ideas getting fleshed out at any one time. Once a promising idea is found, it goes onto the next stage.

Generally, this means that somebody’s going to have to make a sample part to start testing. It might be that somebody in the shop (often Duane) will hand-make a part. We joke that we “cut/grind/weld” the first of many prototypes. If the part it too complex, we have to skip this first stage and move right to drawing the part in a design based computer program. You can’t exactly hand build a new transmission part. Depending on the part, though, we might go through a dozen prototypes before a final design is settled on. Somewhere in this process, I get a part (or idea of a part) that I draw (Kurt Hall, our lead engineer, also draws many of our products). When I say draw, that doesn’t mean I grab a pencil. In fact, I’m not much of a pencil artist. We’re talking about modeling the part on a computer. Some folks call it CAD (Computer Aided Drawing/Design/Drafting), but in modern language it is solid modeling. We use SolidWorks for all of our work. The cool thing about SolidWorks is that you can draw all the parts that make up a complete assembly, and check fit clearance, motion, etc. all before making a real part.

We also have a Microscribe digitizer that lets us get measurements of existing parts we need to model. It sounds a lot easier than it is. Drawing all these other parts can be 75% of the work of drawing the new part. Here is an example: When we made the adjustable linkage for the CRF150R, we had to draw the back half of the frame, the swingarm, the rotating link, a dummy shock, and a subframe. The frame drawing had to have enough information to level the bike so we could see where the seat would be. If you took our linkage, and drew it from scratch, it could be done in about an hour. The real setup time to draw the linkage actually took about a week due to the complexity and relationship to all of the surrounding parts.

The other thing to remember is that it is easy to draw a part that can’t be manufactured. You have to consider what process is going to be used to build this part. If it is going to be welded, machined, forged, or cast; all will need a different design. If you are going to machine the part then you have to remember that a revolving cutter, of some diameter, is going to remove material. Some places simply can’t have square edges. The old joke is, “How to you drill a square hole?” (With a square drill bit of course!) If you are forging (or casting) you need draft angles built in so that the part can be removed from the tooling. If you are welding the part you have to account for heat distortion during welding. If the part must be heat-treated you must account for distortion. All these things must be considered in the early stages of drawing a part. Remember, too, that the drawing must be as precise as the part needs to be. If tolerances of .001” are required, then the drawing must reflect that. Simply writing on paper “.25” doesn’t cut it.

Once the part is drawn, it goes to our CNC programmers. We use MasterCam for all our CNC work. The SolidWorks drawing is imported into MasterCam and the programmers decide every cutter to use and every machining operation to carve a block of material into the part. The machining operations are tested on the computer hundreds of times, and then refined many times before any chips are actually hitting the floor. At the same time, fixtures are designed (and built) to hold the raw material in the CNC machines as it is cut. A simple part might have 4 or 5 different (highly precise) fixtures that have to be made, each being durable enough to survive thousands of uses on each part.

Once the first part is made, it goes back to step one. We fit the part and test it again and again. If it is a motor part, it goes on the dyno for hours of testing. On most parts, we generally let a wide range of riders try them out to see if they meet our expectations. Another round of the cut/grind/weld process often occurs at this point to refine the product further. Sometimes the part is perfect but doesn’t make enough of a difference to justify production. Sometimes it simply sucks. If this is the case, we go back to the drawing board (or computer, in this case). Changes are made to the drawing and it must go all the way back through the CNC guys for updates, then back to step one again…(and the cycle continues until we are 100% satisfied with the results).

Once the part is perfect, we’re still not even close to being done. In fact, the work so far is often the easy part (the fun part for certain). Packaging and instructions have to be worked out. We also must figure out whether the part needs to be further processed (anodized, painted, laser etched, etc). All that goes into the final product and we’re not even to the boring stuff. Somewhere in this journey we also have to figure out what the part is going to cost. You have to consider all the overhead involved. Things like cutters, machine time, finishing, packaging, marketing and material cost are obvious. But we have a business to keep running. The true cost of a part includes things like employee’s salary, insurance, and even the lighting bill.

Once we know what each part will cost to build, we have to figure out what it will sell for. The motorcycle industry has set expectations for what markup for distributors and dealers will be. Unlike many companies, BBR usually sets a reasonable retail price and then work backwards. Sometimes the price we need to sell it to distribution for is less than the part costs us to make!

Two more considerations work into making a new part. First, some parts we simply can’t make in the US. If you want something chrome plated, cast, or injection molded, the regulations in the U.S. make this next to impossible. These regulations and environmental concerns drive the cost through the roof. A good example is our U-Flow filter kit for the KLX110. The tooling for the 4 molded parts included in this kit would have been about $50,000 in the US. Overseas the tooling was considerably less. That helped us cut the retail cost to about half what it would have been. But remember, molded parts usually require a minimum of 1000 parts for each production run. The tooling and these minimum production runs require a huge investment for each new product. We were so confident in the U-Flow that it was a no-brainer, but there are many items that require a substantial gamble on our part. Luckily, we have had very few failures in our new product development, but the risks are always there.

Most of our new parts go to our race team first for testing. We raced the new V3 KLX110 frame for most of 2008 before releasing it to the public (it’s happening now). We’re not trying to keep the parts out of our competitor’s hands; we’re trying to make sure it is the best it can be before it is released. Nothing is better for testing the quality and durability of a part than racing.

As I said before, there are many great ideas out there that are just waiting to be developed. If you have an idea for a new part, let me give you a tip for getting your product idea manufactured. Don’t ever show up at a company with just a drawing of your idea. If you really believe in your part, invest the money to get it made. Build it, test it, and refine it. Then when you show up, you have something that already works. Do a cost analysis. What will this part cost to make (or have made) and what can it sell for? Prove to the manufacturer that your product can work and that it can make a difference. Figure out who is going to buy it and why. Anything else is just another idea.

Thanks to Chris for walking us through this complicated process. It is great to be in a position where we have the people and manufacturing capabilities to develop great ideas into finished products. I can’t think of anything we would rather do.

Question of the Week

“I just installed a big bore kit in my KLX 110 and after one ride, it’s like the bike is now stuck in second gear.” Michael

Oh, the dreaded output shaft! This is the shaft that the countershaft sprocket, first gear, and the kickstarter, rides on. It breaks the end off (opposite the countershaft sprocket) when the KLX motor is modified. When the shaft breaks it sticks the transmission in whatever gear it was in when it broke (if you’re lucky). Then your day is ruined. Worst case is that the engine case gets broken too. Our engine guy can change these things in his sleep but unfortunately you must split the cases to do the job. After changing four output shafts at MiniMoto SX one year we decided to take matters into our own hands. BBR came up with a forged output shaft that all but eliminates the problem. It also comes with first gear, because that is the next weakest link, and we used to blow that up too. If you are going to do a big bore kit, over 130cc, it is highly recommended that you switch the output shaft or switch to the D-Comp cam. Hope this helps! Duane

Blast from the Past

This week’s blast from the past is from the April 1996 issue of Dirt Bike magazine and the French magazine Moto Crampons. The Dirt-Bike Title read “If NASA Made Dirt Bikes” And the Moto-Crampons title read ”The Future Looks Perfect” In 1994 Chris was fighting pancreatitis and I was fighting a job that I really didn’t like. Life was pulling us away from the dream of motorcycles. When Chris was sitting in the Hospital I realized that life is way too short to not do everything you want. I told Chris and Brent that it was now or never. We had spent our whole lives working towards this – The bicycle shop, cars, college, etc…and the real world just isn’t fun. I don’t want to work a job I hate and sit at a computer whining about how I would do it. I want to be the guy doing it! I walked into my work and announced that they could all, “kiss my butt!” I wanted to make sure I couldn’t go back! I went home and told my family and friends. No one seemed quite as excided as I was (especially my pregnant wife) but that didn’t matter. We were on a mission to build the trickest dirt bikes in the world. We had about six months to get it together before the money ran out. Twenty hours a day were gladly (if not nervously) spent. We decided to build three bikes. An XR100, a 280, and a 400. The 100 was an aluminum framed YZ80 with a bored to 150cc XR100 engine. The 280 was an XR250 engine bored to 280cc with a hand made aluminum frame and gas tank. The 400 was a brand new for 1996 XR400 engine. The frame was aluminum and carried the oil plus used the 1996 CR250 geometry. I knew we were onto something when my lap times were better on the BBR 400 than on the 1996 CR250. When the bikes were complete I gave 4-Stroke friendly Dirt Bike Magazine a call to see if they would like to ride them. At first they blew me off and said they had all of the XR400s they could test, but we could send some pictures. The pictures were sent and Joe Kosch immediately called back and wondered how soon we could get to California. We loaded the bikes into the back of a borrowed pickup truck and headed to Valencia. Once there we became fast friends with Joe, Lumpy, and Ron. They shot the bikes for hours in the studio and then we headed to Texas canyon to do some test riding. Darrin Hoeft whipped the BBR400 for the cover shot of Dirt Bike. They shot me on the 400 for the centerfold of an article submitted to French magazine Moto Crampons. When these two magazines came out three months later we were in business. This turned out to be one of Dirt Bike magazine's biggest issues ever (even to this day). If you want to see more check out the video and magazines here:

It’s been a wild ride for the past twelve years. Thanks for helping us live the dream! - Duane

Building Championship Winning Bikes

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:20:00 +0000

Let’s talk about race bikes this week and what goes into building a championship winning bike. We will talk specifically about Derek Costella’s 50 and 110 since he is the current champ.

First, let’s take a look at the rules that govern Derek’s bikes. In 2003, Tim Clark gave us a call and said he was thinking of putting a race on in Las Vegas. We were stoked at the idea of an adult playbike race. Larry Kuebler (our Sales Manager) and I jumped on a plane to get face to face with Tim and check out the arena. Once the Orleans Arena was decided on, we had to come up with the rules for the first MiniMoto SX. The 50 and 110 classes were still in their infancy and there weren’t many after market race parts available for these two bikes. Our thought was to set a wheel size, wheel base limit, and require them to be air cooled. This would allow manufacturers room to develop frames and motor parts with out too much restriction. It would also keep it simple for the racers and spectators to understand. I personally wanted to make the 50s use a 10 inch front wheel (to keep them small and hard to ride) plus use a short wheel base. We also discussed a no "4-valve head" rule due to cost - but both of these were shot down. Enough people were already using them so it would have been hard to go back. The rules have pretty much stayed the same since that first MiniMoto and have become industry standard – except for one – the fifty wheel base. It grew by two inches from 44 to 46. I opposed this change because, all of a sudden, you could take a 110 and put 50 wheels on it and race the 50 class. The 150 class had already been dropped and now the 50 class was morphing into the 110 class. Why not allow water cooling, cradles, and bigger wheels too? Shoot, let’s just race 450s! Oh wait; there’s already a series for those…

With the current rules in place we decided to increase the BBR 50 wheelbase right to the new limit. We also tested a 50 wheeled 110 just to make sure it wasn’t the way to go. The frame on the perimeter 50 was stretched and the footpegs were moved back. This gave the bike a roomier feel plus it put more weight on the front wheel helping to get rid of the front end push that 50s are so famous for. Different fork and shock lengths were tried until the perfect balance was achieved. The next step in chassis setup was tires. We knew we had to go bigger. The motors had become more powerful than any 50 chassis or 10 inch wheel could ever handle. It was obvious that if we were going to keep from spinning the tiny rear wheel and pushing the front tire we were going to have to go huge in the tire department. We went with 3.50x10 in the rear and 2.75x12 in the front. Problem solved. The next step to building the ultimate 50 was to smooth the engine out. If you are spinning the tire you are not going forward. Plus the harder the power comes on the worse the bike handles. Picture how good a stock 2.7 H.P. Honda 50 handles. The stock Honda 50 is so slow it doesn’t push the front tire, wheelie out of the corners, or spin the back tire. That is why it is so fun to ride. Now picture putting a 20 H.P. motor into that same stock bike. It would be a nightmare to hang onto and the suspension wouldn’t even know what to do. The trick is to come up with a power spread that keeps you moving forward and not fighting the bike. This is why the CRF450R has been so successful over the years. Some people confuse smoothness for slow, but as Jeanie Carmichael once told us, “the stopwatch doesn’t lie”.

The actual motor we use in the 50 is the Daytona dual over head cam 4-valved setup. It has proven to be a very reliable race engine - plus they are quality Japanese parts you can count on. We do our own porting to move the power curve to fit each rider. We also use flywheel weights and different carb sizes all to personalize the power curve. I did test some of the Chinese 50 engines to see what they were all about. They use a Honda 50 style bottom end with a 110 style top - but no two of them are the same. By the time you get them going fast enough to win they aren’t that much cheaper than building a real motor. Plus, when the clutch basket comes flying out the side of the cases, most riders don’t think that is as funny as I do. Daytona is working on a complete race motor in a box that is going to be priced right and make MX power right out of the box. I have been testing one all summer and, for a production motor, it is awesome. It will definitely change everything. It should be available before Christmas (watch our website). You can check out the Daytona factory here:

Once we had the 50 frame, suspension, and engine up to speed it was time to start spinning laps. The BBR test track is at my house so it makes it easy to ride as much as possible and let’s face it, isn’t that why we are all doing this? I have a great bunch of riders that come over on a regular basis so we can get some real feedback quickly. Everyone from pros, kids, neighbors, and even the secretary, all give input on BBR bikes and parts.

Once the in-house testing is complete we call in the big guns to check our work. We flew Timmy Weigand up (Honda test rider and factory Honda WORCS racer) to spin laps on the 50 to get his input. Right from the start he loved the 50. The sketchy handling was gone and the motor was smoothed out. A simple fork revalve and a shock spring swap and he was ready to go. Timmy even strung together one of the biggest double jump combos I have ever seen on a 50. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that on video, but we did get this:

Next up was Derek. Derek is the fastest mini-bike rider in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to ride with everyone from MC to RC and RV. Derek can throw it down and finds speed where there is none. The best part is that no one has more fun riding minis than Derek. He always has a huge smile under his helmet.

Derek flew up from Vegas to test the new bikes. Since I am personally responsible for global warming (I think there’s a hole in the ozone above my house!) it decided to snow in April. Who cares - we rode anyway and you can check out the video here (also some testing in Las Vegas at start of video):

To avoid destroying the bikes in the mud, we decided to ship them to Vegas and test at Derek’s home track. At first Derek thought he wanted to race the 50 class on a 110 with 50 wheels because of the huge power the 110 makes. But in the end, the stop watch prevailed and he was faster on the 50. The other problem with the 110/50 combo is ground clearance. There is none. Saw a lot of guys on this combo struggling to get through the whoops at MiniMoto. If you are dragging the skidplate around the track it isn’t going to work. After a few tweaks to the brakes, to make them like a light switch (like Derek wants), new fork springs, and a header swap was all Derek needed to run away from the best riders in the world at MiniMoto in the 50 class.

With the 50 dialed in, it was time to concentrate on the 110. The engineers at Kitaco emailed us in December (2007) and said they were working on a 4-valved 110 head they wanted us to try. It would be a brand new design (not based on any other motor). At first we were hesitant because we already had the 110 dialed with the perfect MX style of power. I had tested all of the big stroker engines and short piston setups, but most were a mess: All they did was make lots of noise and a lot of wheel spin. Since testing is what we love to do we decided to find out what the 4-valve was all about. Brent, Kurt, and I jumped on a plane and flew over to Kitaco in Japan. When we got there we were surprised to find out we were the first American distributor to ever visit them in Japan. We hooked up with their head engineer, who designs and engineers all of Kitaco’s engine parts. He showed us the very first 4-valved head and let us take one for a spin in the parking lot. It definitely made big power, but was it the right kind of power to win? We would find out shortly. The employees at Kitaco, told us they wanted to fly to Las Vegas to watch the 4-valved head win. That is why they contacted us. We laughed and told them that it’s not that easy. There is a huge luck factor that can play out at anytime. But they insisted. We got back to the states and the testing began. Right out of the box the production Kitaco 160 4-valve top end was dyno testing the same as our full race motor from one year earlier. The power curve was a little lower because it is basically a stroked to 143 motor (up to 160cc). No problem. We developed a slightly larger D2 exhaust (that now comes standard with the V3 frame)and ported the head to flow a bit higher to let the bike "over-rev". What we ended up with is a race motor making two more horsepower than we previously had made, while still keeping the same magic power curve. Plus it was cheaper and easier to build in the long run. At first, Derek wasn’t sure about the new motor. He likes the bike to steer on a dime and anytime you add more power it messes with the handling. But once he had some time riding the new motor against the old motor, he realized he could shift up a gear in the whoops and pound them even harder. It was a “done deal”! For our other BBR riders the extra power was also welcome. With the new power range of the motor, a riding mistake could be made and a simple stab at the clutch would get things going again instantly. Since the new bikes were going to debute in Vegas we decided to polish the frames and come up with new graphics to match the bike. You’ve probably all seen photos by now, but here is a photo of Derek’s 110 winning bike:

Hopefully, it is obvious that building a championship bike is more than sitting on the dyno trying to squeeze out peak horsepower. Of course, we have an in-house dyno, but peak horsepower doesn't win races. BBR's specialty has always been building a great package. Innovative frame design, works quality suspension and brakes, and engine development that delivers usable power. Thanks to the hard work of everybody at BBR, it all paid off with Derek being the first person ever to win both classes at MiniMoto SX.

Question of the Week

"What is the fix for the front brake on my Marzocchis? They drag all the time and almost stop the front wheel in the air. Plus they’re next to impossible to bleed." - Daniel

Hey Daniel; we gave up on the Formula brake a long time ago. It is basically a mountain bike brake. The worst part is they use a non-floating caliper, so as the brake pads wear, the brake drags even more. The other thing is that if the rotor gets bent it just drags on itself. And you have to be a genius to bleed these things. You’re going to end up bleeding yourself before it is over. Take them off and put them in the circular file, because we have you covered. Chris came up with a mini CR style full-floating brake a couple of years ago that gives you big bike performance and feel. It even uses your favorite "big bike" CR brake lever. It works with the stock Marzocchi hub or we have a trick billet aluminum hub that will spoke into stock style rims (in colors!). Also, Galfer provides a tough wave rotor for this setup. Click here for the 110 brake, and here for the 50 brake. Hope this helps. As always feel free to give us a ring anytime. We love to talk motorcycles!

Blast from the Past

This week's blast from the past is from the January 2005 Dirt Rider Magazine and our buddies over there (Jimmy Lewis, Karl Kramer, Dick Burlson and the whole crew). At that time, the mini bike scene was exploding so the largest off road magazine decided to put a mini-bike on the cover. This was also Jimmy Lewis’ first issue with Dirt Rider as Editor. Being the mini-bike nut that he is, he called looking for the ultimate mini-bike. Ricky Carmichael had just switched to Suzuki so we were in the middle of building his personal 110's when we got the call. It was Jimmy’s lucky day. At the time there were very few parts for the 110. The biggest bore kit available was a 130. We knew that wasn’t going to be enough for RC, so we took a 150F Honda piston and started machining it to come up with the first 160cc kit. Chris Gosselaar would use a version of this kit and bike to win MiniMoto 2005.

OK that’s it for this week. Thanks for helping us live the dream!

Duane

150F Playbikes

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:54:00 +0000

Let’s talk about the 150F bikes this week. There has been a lot of interest in this size bike again with the introduction of the KLX140. Yamaha, Honda, and Suzuki have also updated the TT-R125, CRF100, CRF150, and DRZ125 in recent years. It is great to see the interest again in these bikes and it is great to see that this portion of our business is strong. Some people don’t understand why adults would ride slow playbikes that are nearly the size of a full-sized motorcycle. The reality is that these bikes are a blast to ride with your buddies. They make great trainers for real MX (with less chance of getting hurt) and it takes real skill to make one go fast. Name any top motocross star and you can just about bet they have a 150 playbike in their garage.

Lets start by going back to the first real 4-stroke play bike; the 1973 Honda XR75. This bike was a hit right from the start. The smooth power delivery, sharp handling, reliability, and incredible performance potential all made for the perfect storm. Performance companies popped up all over the place. Companies like DG, PK racing, J.W.R.P., Redline, and a host of others all started building parts for the little XR. It didn’t take long for adults to start riding and modifying them for pit-bikes and backyard fun. There was even a mini-bike race the night before the nationals that most of the stars of the day competed in. If you are into XR75s check out this video:

Eventually, the XR75 movement turned into the XR100 movement with the introduction of the first XR 100 in 1981. The bike had an all new engine and big 16"/19" wheels for the first time. The larger wheels made the bike adult friendly and a great bike for the wife or girlfriend. Adult backyard races were starting to pop up all over the country. Langtown became the most famous race since it was located in Southern California with all of the magazines and factories nearby. The race took on a life all its own with semi-trucks and factory backed riders, all making the trek to the tiny backyard track for a shot at the Langtown title. The hand made bikes that showed up there to race were as much a part of the show as the race itself. Some of the trickest bikes in the world came from the desire to win at Langtown. Aluminum frames, carbon fiber tanks, disc brakes, and stroker motors were the norm. Every imaginable hybrid bike made its way through Langtown over the years. If you want to see more, click on the photo below to view video of this legendary race.

The next step of the evolution came with the introduction of the TT-R125 in 2000. This bike was like a fully modified XR100 right out of the box. It had a front disc brake, 125cc motor, fair suspension, and YZ looks. BBR had a field day with this bike building pipes, bore kits, filters, and springs. You name it, we built it. We even built a perimeter framed version and took it to the White Bros. 4-stroke World Championships. With Rich Taylor onboard we walked away with the championship. It instantly made the TT-R the bike to beat. In 2001 BBR took over the 150cc class and put up a huge $6000 pro purse. That was a huge amount for that time period, and even bigger considering that it was for an adult minibike race. 87 riders showed up on homemade XR100s and TT-R125s from all over the country. Instead of having qualifiers it was decided to run a three row start and let everyone bang bars together on the Glen Helen track. What a Blast! The list of riders was a "who’s who" in the motorcycle industry. From current national pros to former national champions, they all showed up for a shot at the $6000 purse. Lance Smail walked away with the win with Jimmy Lewis in tow. I wish I could have raced, what many consider to be the best 150 race ever, but I had exploded my foot the day before. It was frustrating watching the race go on without me. I did get to help do the TV announcing (in a Vicodin haze and on crutches). Click on the photo to watch the video:

Honda introduced the next generation of play bikes with the 150F in 2003. This bike was aimed at adults with its friendly size and 156cc motor. The bike sparked a whole new group of riders that were too big or too fast for the XR100. The 150F had some girth to it and was over-built so that it could take a beating. A big-bike pro could get on the 150F without worrying about snapping it in half. Honda gave BBR a pre-production bike to start working with. The first thing we did, in typical BBR fashion, was pull the motor out and toss the rest of the bike away. We built a perimeter framed bike and headed to Langtown with it. Steve Lamson was set to race it but had to fly to Japan for some testing. Luckily, team Honda Manager, Eric Kehoe, stepped in and took the job. He ended up finishing second to Roncada that year in his first attempt at Langtown. It was impressive. He didn’t win, but the writing was on the wall, and the CRF150F was here to stay. The perimeter 150F was a huge success and went on to become the standard for 150 racing. At the first Mini-Moto race in Vegas 2004 the 150 class was the premier class with Stanton, Cooper, McGrath, Taylor, Antunez, and Emig all banging bars for the title. All twelve bikes in the main were BBR framed 150s.

Suzuki didn’t want to be left out of the fun so they introduced a bike that was similar to the TT-R125. It was an instant hit with the Suzuki crowd. It never caught on as big as the XRs, TT-Rs, or CRFs because it was a little late to the party, but it is one of the best bikes Suzuki ever built. BBR makes a ton of parts for the DRZ125, so if you are a Suzuki nut we’ve got you covered.

OK, let’s talk about the KLX140. This is the first new 150cc sized play bike to come along in years…and it’s a great one! It has a new 140cc engine with great torque, a steel perimeter frame, front and rear disc brakes, and a good rear shock. Overall, the bike is a blast to ride right out of the box. The best part is that the bike can be easily modified. This is a good thing, because in stock trim, the bike is pretty tame. With its 86 decibel pipe and a 20mm carb, it seems like you can run faster than the bike can go. No big deal. Modifying the bike is half the fun of owning a play bike. BBR already has a D2 pipe, carb kit, suspension mods, graphics, and other parts in stock. If you're a KLX140 owner, feel free to give us a call. You can check out the video of us testing the KLX here:

The 150 bikes are going stronger than ever, there are plenty of places to race them, and best of all, they are inexpensive, quiet, and can be modified as little or as much as you like. The other great thing about this bike is that there is a company who dedicates itself to making the best performance parts money can buy for them. Just give our BBR Toll Free Line a call (1-888-MOTO-BBR), and we'll get you anything you need for your CRF150F, KLX140, TT-R125 or DRZ125. And don't forget, we still have hundreds of parts for the CRF100...one of the bikes that started it all.

Question of the Week

"Hey guys, love the new website! Will the U-flow filter do any thing for my bone stock KLX110 or do I need a pipe, or bore kit?" Bob in SoCal

Thanks Bob! Absolutely, the KLX is one of he most corked up bikes of all time. The stock filter setup is about as restrictive as you can get and have the bike still run. If you were to pull the stock air box off, and try to ride the bike without it, you would find out that the bike is jetted from the factory very lean to compensate for the restrictive air box. With the U-Flow filter installed ALONE, you have to go up almost twenty sizes on the main jet! At $129.95, the U-Flow is definitely the best bang-for-the-buck for the KLX110. It does more than any cam, pipe, and even some of the bore kits out there. If you don’t agree once you get it on the bike, we will be happy to take it back! I have seen guys on the web taking radiator hoses, PVC tube, etc. trying to do the same thing. Trust me - we tried all of that but it made the bike slower in most cases. The trick is in the exact formation of the U-Flow boot which creates the perfect dead-air space right at the mouth of the carb. Every single modern 4-stroke uses this technology. Can you name one bike that comes from the factory with the filter clamped right on the carb? OK, maybe some Maicos did, but we are trying to move forward in time here! It just hasn’t trickled down to the play bikes yet. Another trick you can do if you are going to run the stock pipe, with the U-Flow, is to drill out the stock header. Simply take the stock exhaust off and take a 5/8 drill bit or a dremel tool and drill or grind out the restrictor washer that is welded into the pipe right where it goes into the head. This will give you a noticeable increase in top end. It’s no BBR pipe, but when combined with the U-Flow it’s a great setup if you need to keep your 110 whisper-quiet. Hope this answers your question. - Duane

Blast from the Past

This week’s, "Blast from the Past" comes from Motocross Journal and all our friends over there (Jimmy Mac, Tim Olson, and the Hi-Torque gang). The issue is February 2000, and keeping with our 150 sized bike theme, the featured article is the 1999 BBR perimeter framed XR100 Lance Smail Replica. Click on the photo to see the complete story.

We carved this bike out of a block of aluminum, pre-CNC days at BBR. The bike used CR80 components (wheels, forks, shock). BBR teamed up with Powroll on the motor. We ended up using the XR80 crank and stroking it up to 121cc’s. It worked pretty good on a tight track like Langtown. We ran the PVL ignition that had a fixed ignition curve so it was a nightmare to start and a nightmare to dial in. I believe we melted at least two of these ignitions just during the testing process. The day after these photos were taken, we headed over to Langtown...or at least tried to. Our good friend Lance has had a few dozen injuries over the years, and on the morning of the race his back decided to go out. He crawled to the bathroom of the Holiday Inn and laid down in the shower for an hour before he could even stand. A dozen Ibuprofen later and Lance was ready to race. Lance pulled the holeshot and blocked his way to the first moto win. Moto two was a different story. He got a bad start and just didn’t have the strength to aggressively move his way to the front. A 4th place finish, for third overall, was all he could come up with. Looking back, it was amazing he raced at all! Lance and BBR would have their day. The next year Lance, Brad Hagseth, and Timmy Weigand stormed Langtown with a BBR 1-2-3 sweep. This was one of many dominating performances at Langtown for BBR, and we look back on those days with great memories. The event, the bikes, and the people were all very unique. Thanks Bob Langen for so many great years!

Alright back to riding! Call us anytime and, as always, thanks for helping us live the dream.

Duane

9/15 - This week at BBR

noreply@blogger.com (DuaneBrown) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:45:00 +0000

Hey guys - Duane here. We are going to do a weekly blog to keep everyone up to date on what’s happening at BBR and in the mini bike world. We will try to post it every Friday (if they can pry me away from the race shop or get me off the bikes long enough to write this). As always, if you have a question you would like to ask me, or my brothers (Brent and Chris), feel free to shoot us an E-mail at sales@bbrmotorsports.com. If it is a good question, we will use it here for all to see. If you need an immediate answer to a question, simply give us a ring anytime and our friendly staff will help you out. The other cool thing that we will add to this column is a “blast from the past” article. The media has been great to BBR over the years so we will dig up some of those great old tests and stories from Dirt Bike, Motocross Action, Dirt Rider, Motocross Journal, MX Racer, Transworld MX, Mini Moto, Pit-Racer, etc. and run them here. There have been some classics, like: “If NASA Made Dirt Bikes”, The “Worlds Best 4-stroke”, “Ready, Set, Drool”. We will post a new one every week.

Also, check out our Photo Gallery. It is a work in progress, but we are slowly adding all the photos from our old website plus lots of new stuff. We have about 1500 photos right now, but we're adding 50+ per day. Eventually, we hope to have our complete collection on-line. The coolest thing is that you can search the photos for common keywords. So, if you're a vintage XR75 guy, type XR75 in the search box and click on the Search button. You'll see all the photos that have "XR75" in the title or description. Go here to check it out: Photo Gallery

So what is going on at BBR right now? You name it. As always, we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off. That’s when everyone seems to be at their best around here! The big news is the release of the new V3 (version 3) 110 Aluminum Perimeter frame kit. It has been a ton of work, but it is our best frame yet. We are still trying to make as many BBR parts in house as we can. I am positive it has been the key to our success so far, especially with our frame kits. By making the parts in-house it allows us to make immediate changes during testing or even during a production run. The V3 frame was started about two years ago with the intent to fit both the 50 motor and the 110 motor. This was no easy feat with all the different versions of these two motors floating around, not to mention all the different carbs, manifolds, pegs, and exhaust. Of course, we’ve been building and racing 110 sized bikes with the 50 motor for over 5 years. Those frames were purpose built for the Honda motor. The new frame can switch motors just by swapping the motor mounts (and a new exhaust header). How cool is that?

The original 110 Perimeter Frame kit was designed when the biggest motor kits available were 130cc. Now there are 4-valve heads, stroker cranks, giant carbs, and good filters. All of this was taken into consideration when updating the frame. Also, the riding style has changed. The riders are going bigger, farther, and faster then ever before. Minor changes in tube sizes and material thickness allowed us to create the best handing frame we've ever produced.

The new frame was completely designed on the computer. I might even be ready to concede that the computer is smarter than me when it comes to stress testing and fitment issues. But until it can spin laps on the bike and give real world feed back, I won’t be completely converted (or out of a job!). Once the prototype was done the real fun began. We let the BBR crew pound out the laps, plus some of the fastest guys in the world, and made adjustments accordingly. Trying to get everyone to agree on the same settings is impossible when you are trying to build a bike that kids can ride, as well as vets and women, and of course still be able to win at the highest level.

I think we hit our goals from all the reaction and results so far. The V3 has led every lap of every pro race it has been in so far. Derek Costella pulled the holeshot and ran away at Vegas, with Ryan Abrigo in tow. Then Abrigo ran away at the Summer National with Costella in tow. We’re really happy with the results and we’re confident that you’ll love it too. We joke that the only person who won't appreciate this frame kit is a 9 year old girl with low self esteem. Hope you have as much fun and success with it as we have!

Blast from the Past

OK – This week’s blast from the past comes from Motocross Action Mag. and all of the guys over there. In the August 1998 issue, MXA tested the BBR perimeter framed YZ400. This was the pre CNC machine days at BBR so we basically took a band saw, a Bridgeport mill, lathe, and a huge pile of passion for MX and carved this bike out! This was pre CR450F, so we can safely say that this one came from our soul. The bike also used all YZ geometry, suspension, and components. Enjoy!

Alright – that’s it for this week. Thanks for helping us live the American dream!

Duane