Progress

Well, although it has been a while since I have posted, I am progressing slowly. I am trying to find someone with a big enough sand blasting unit to have the chrome stripped off the frame so it can go in for powder coating..anyone know a powder coating place near Hamilton? I have rough formed the new engine plates out of checker plate (the shiny patterned metal on Fire Trucks)and will have them finished soon. I have been playing with colour patterns and am still undecided..working on it. I will be posting a few photos soon. Progress is underway and updates will come more frequently.

The weather is warming up and the itch is getting stronger.

Did anyone else find that whenever they came around a left corner that was covered with snow...they applied more gas! As for that matter a right hand corner too!

Meet the builder

Wow...thank you for the responses. A few people wanted to know my background and why I am doing this. Thought I would bring everyone up to speed. I first started riding speedway when I turned 17 and started on a two valve Jawa. I was only in it for 4 years and learned a great amount and met many great people. I was never a great racer but would play myself in the pretty OK field. Won the Division 2 point in Canada and the East Coast US Division 2 event in Greene, NY and moved up to Division I in Canada. For those years I poured my heart and sole into the sport and never regret any of it.

As I left the sport I still enjoyed motorcycles and followed this passion to American Motorcycle Institute in Daytona Beach Fla. A truely great experience for those looking for a mechanical background. When I came back to Canada (after missing the Canadian winter!) I was lucky to get a short time position as a motorcycle mechanic working for Central Ontario Cycle. After leaving there, I started into the personal watercraft field and switched motorsport sports.

For the past few years I have spectated a few of the Ontario races and felt the urge to throw a leg over a bike again and turn a few wrenches. I wanted to get back into the sport but wanted to do it for a cause. Hence, this project. I am a Firefighter and took great pleasure watching the famous Fire bike being built on American Chopper. This inspired the Fire Speedway Bike. Knowing of the Toma Foundation, I desided to utilize this project to gain recognition for them and to try and raise funding.

Please check back to this site often as you will see this bike being built and there will be items for sale as they are donated. All funds raised here will go directly to TOMA.

Thanks for the emails

Scott Collier

Help - Parts wanted

Right off the top I am looking for a few reasonably priced good condition parts. Need:
Seat - It will be recovered, just need solid foundation,
Muffler - this one is in poor shape, looking for something better,
Rear fender push bar,
right foot peg (ridgid),
lower rear loop/engine plates mounting bolt
If you have any of these, let me know. scollier3@cogeco.ca

Organization is the key to success

It is a good idea to place small parts in a box. Again this helps make reassembly easy. Keeping parts seperated in small boxes allows you to keep track of everything and lets you know where you stand on your project. For simplicity, and current lack of space, I have chosen to follow the rule of keep it simple stupid and only utilized what I had - one box!

Tear Down

Well, it took a little longer then thought to tear this bike apart. Many different size and styles of nuts and bolts were utilized and much welding held this old beauty together. Many tools were required to take this apart and you can see my favorite one sitting on the rear wheel in this picture. If it won't move, get a bigger hammer! It is important to lay each part out and lable it so parts don't get lost. Keeping the parts grouped also helps for easy assembly. As an example: Frame parts together, engine parts together, brake parts together! As you can see here, I have layed out everything in an organized manner to show absolute professionalism.

Starting point

Well here it is. A real pretty bike...NOT! Some one likes using a welder! Here's the bike and its asperation in the background. Lets see what happens!

Picked Up Bike

Finally schedules meet! Must be a full moon. Yes, we now have something to start with. At a 4:00 pm meeting we had a chance to meet up with Jeff from GT TUNING CANADA and pick up the bike. It looked like a shady deal going down as we met in the parking lot of McDonalds! As we started to make the bike smaller (so it would fit in my truck) a few onlookers had to stop by to see what was happening! Safely loaded it was time to go.

Bike Pick up!

We are happy to say that we will be picking up our project bike on Friday! It is currently at GT Tuning Canada and we look foward to picking up and getting started. Look for beginning pictures soon!

Sponsor highlight - Fabutan

We would like to welcome and thank Fabutan for being the first sponsor of this project. Fabutan can help you get over the winter blues by helping you look and feel better. See Hamilton store locations at Upper Gage & Rymal or Fennel and Upper Wentworth. We at Speedway Corner, would like to thank you for your generous support.

Current Canadian Speedway news

Well, not much is happening in Canada right now. Although, the fact that there is no snow and warmer temperatures, I bet that many would like to trade in their winter boots for a steel shoe!
Two notes of interest...Kyle Legualt (Canadian 2006 Champ) has signed to race for Minden Hall in the UK. Also, Aaron Hesmer of Hesmer Motorsports has signed to race in Argentina for he next few months. Also worth noting, that Aaron's older brother Chris (a former top Canadian) is a firefighter for Brantford, Ontario!

We wish these two promising riders all the best in representing themselves and Canada.

Kyle Legault http://www.kylelegault.co.uk
Aaron Hesmer http://hesmerdoesargentina.blogspot.com

Fire Department and Motorcycles

Really, what does the Fire Department and motorcycles have in common. Well, here is a little background. Did you know that many Firefighters belong to a motorcycle group?
There was interest in promoting the positive image of motorcycling while enjoying the camaraderie of other firefighters. It was decided that this group would be known as the Red Knights International Firefighters Motorcycle Club. There are chapters of this club seen around the world with the local chapter based out of Hamilton. Looking to join as an associate? Or, want to join in a weekly ride? Check out the Hamilton Chapter website located in the links section.

Bike Found

We have successfully found a bike for this project! We have located an older Jawa 898 upright to use as our Fire theme bike. We hope to have some pictures of the start of this project soon! I would like to take the time to thank Canadian Racers Corinne Franic and Terry Rideout for their support for the start of this project.

Welcome

Welcome to Speedway Corner, a Blog site ready to build something new and exciting. Join us as we search for a project speedway bike and convert a once race bike into something very different on the dirt oval! Similar to the concept behind the TV show American Chopper, we will be attempting to build a Fire themed Speedway Bike! A raceable speedway bike that will be utilized to help promote the sport of Speedway Motorcycle racing and to help raise awareness and funds for TOMA: Foundation for Burned Children. Toma and motorcycles have gone hand in hand for many years and an annual charity ride takes place in September to help raise funds for this foundation. Toma will have booths set up and many of the Ontario motorcycle shows, including the Supershow this coming weekend. Please take the time to see their link posted at the side.