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Friday September 26, 2008

Rainy European finals at Santa Pod Raceway

Blood, sweat and tears, day and night, 7 days a week is the best way to describe the last few weeks in Zodiac Racing's workshop to get "The Godfather VII" ready to rumble for the first time. One hour before it was put in the trailer, the bike ran for a couple of minutes on Methanol, and only for 5 seconds on Nitromethane. For 5 seconds and then shut down in a hurry to be able to catch the ferry to England's home of European drag racing, Santapod Raceway. There it literally shook the world, as it started, and ended, with a big bang.

The team principal and bike owner Ton Pels announced it on Eurodragster and Kingracing.com: "Yes, we will come to the European Finals with the new bike, but no, cosmetically the bike will not be ready yet." So the team had to go for it. Ton was finishing the final drive, rear wheel hubs and spacers, outer sprocket support plate and all the other hardware that needed attention, whilst Vincent had put on the fuel, pneumatics, electrical and datalog system in record time. Roel finished the brake hoses and fittings, clutch management pressure lines and fitted the temporary body and front fender.
The day the bike was leaving for Santapod was the first day the bike could be started to run in nitromethane. The engine ran good on methanol from the spray cans, so the fuel was switched on. After it filled the nozzle lines the engine ran fuel, but the setting of the barrel valve and butterfly were way off, so it idled at 4500 RPM. The fuel shut-off was hit, the engine quit and it was decided to set the bike up in England. "It runs, the rest is a matter of tuning" Ton said.

Building a top fuel drag bike from the ground up in less then a year turned out to be a tough job. With "from the ground up" meaning making almost everything in-house. When a Eurodragster reporter asked what was made by the Zodiac team themselves, Vincent probably described it best: "Let me sum up what we didn't make ourselves, as that list will be a lot shorter". But in the end it felt like putting a "two year project" into one year. The team has frantically worked to get the bike ready in time for the finals. Being a new bike, points for improvements will be found and it is better to find these before the winter then at the beginning of the season when the pressure is already on.
At Santa Pod it took the team two more warm-ups to get the bike to idle and pick up to their satisfaction. But then rain came, long heavy rain. Thursday was no race day so, OK, let's hope for better weather on Friday. But no, no better weather on Friday. The last hope was Saturday, as the team wanted to get track time to tune the bike. Saturday morning it looked better. The Pod crew already swept and dried the track and were already putting glue to it, the SuperTwins were called to the line for the first qualifying session. Once in the line up, it started again. Dark clouds started to come in just as the final layer of glue was being applied to the track, heavy rain started to poor down. At 3 O'clock in the afternoon the day was cancelled and there would be a "one shot" qualifying session Sunday morning. A wise decision as it rained continuously till Sunday 10 O'clock in the morning.

Roel Bragging: This much throttle!

After the burnout Roel was getting confident and started bragging: "Just this much throttle" he was smiling from within his helmet.

Because of the One Shot qualifying the bike was "Upped" to be able to qualify in the only qualifying session they had. More Fuel, more clutch and more ignition. Sunday afternoon they had the track race ready and qualifying started. The "Godfather VII" was the first SuperTwin out. It was fired up and Roel went straight into the burnout. Great burnout and the engine sounded clean. Maybe too clean? Roel only wanted to roll out of the waterbox, but the rear wheel instantly went up in smoke so the throttle response was more then he had anticipated for. "Just this much throttle" Roel was smiling from within his helmet when Vincent was pushing the bike back. His nerves suddenly became confidence, as the bike was easily guided in the burnout and it did not vibrate at all. Back at the start line the bike was put on the "high-ish cackle" and moved into stage. On the green Roel hesitated a short moment, getting himself focused on the game plan, and then hit full throttle. The bike hooked up, planted the rear tire and BANG! With a huge flash both heads were lifted and it went quite. This is not what the team had hoped for.
Back in the pits the questions started, was it too lean? All the data was studied and the bike seemed to be doing what it was supposed to do, at least close enough. Was it too rich then? With the amount of fuel going in it was sort of impossible to hydraulic the heads that quickly.

Back home the engine was opened up and the damage was inspected more closely. Both heads lifted, oval small end on the con rods, bent wrist pins, even the main bearings of the rods and crank were smashed in. What immediately caught our attention the most was that the pushrod sides of both exhaust rocker arms were broken off and with nitromethane, that can cause devastation like this. So even though the bike only ran for 0.2 seconds, the team was glad they went to the Pod to find out these issues. The rocker arms is one of the few parts not made or designed by the Zodiac team, but this will not be for long. Other areas that are going to be taken under extra close investigation is cam-timing and manifold design.
Right now, the bike is being readied for a couple of shows. A new body is fabricated and the bike will finally receive a paint job. After these shows, some more cosmetic work will be done on the bike and it will be made ready for the 2009 season. Tests will probably commence at the Easter Thunderball, if not before.

Team Zodiac's "Godfather VII" literally shook the world, as it started, and ended, with a big bang.

For the real race enthusiast the bike will be displayed at the Rosmalen Big Twin Bike Show in November, the Custom Performance Show at Bad Salzuflen Germany in December and the Motor Bike Expo at Verona Italy in January and, like said, it will be fully painted in the Zodiac colors!!

See you at the racetrack!

Next to Zodiac Racing's own products the Zodiac Race Shop can supply racers brands like G² (exclusive distributor for Europe), S&S Race Products (exclusive distributor for Europe), McClure's Master Performance Racing, ARP, JE, Racepak, Kinsler, Gates, PM and much much more.
For any racing needs, please contact us at zodiacracing@zodiac.nl
Check out our race catalog at http://www.zodiac.nl/en/catalog/zodiacracing_shop.html

The Zodiac SuperTwin Top Fuel drag racing team is proudly sponsored by Zodiac International B.V., Supertrapp Exhaust Systems, ACCEL Motorcycle Products and Spectro Oils of America.

The Zodiac SuperTwin Top Fuel drag racing team is proud to use products from Zodiac International B.V., Supertrapp Exhaust Systems, ACCEL Motorcycle Products, Spectro Oils of America, Performance Machine Disk Brakes and Wheels, Kibblewhite Precision Machining, Midwest Acorn Nut Company, Goodridge Fluid Transfer Systems and Gates Belt Drive Systems.

Photos by Roger Gorringe, Ivan Sansom, Stefan Boman and Karin de Haas.

Tuesday July 1, 2008

Zodiac Racing's "Godfather VII" on wheels for the first time

With the first UEM European Championship race turning out to be a rain-off, most racers are fierily looking forward to the second round of the championship coming up next weekend, at Finland's Alastaro circuit. And although the new supercharged bike of the Zodiac Racing team has been on its wheels for the first time, they will have to follow the race from the Ton's workshop, trying to get the "Godfather VII" ready.

The last three weeks have been used to shape over 100 foot of chromoly tubing into the chassis of the new supercharged and Nitro-fed V-Twin. Burning the midnight oil during the week days and working both days of tho weekends the frame progressed quickly and it was put on it's wheels for the first time yesterday morning. Right now the last engine-plates have already been programmed in the CNC milling machine and will be machined as soon as the raw material comes in and work on the fuel and oil tank has started.
Ton and Vincent have most of the machining and fabrication work out of their way now and found out that, in-spite of what many say, Roel is still the best handy man to have around! Now they can start working on the tanks, plumbing, electronics and bodywork. The fuel tank is going to be up-front with the oil tank just behind the it.

Although their goal is still the Mantorp race at the end of July, they are aware they are getting very short in time. But with the ferry and plane tickets already booked, the team have decided to come to the Mantorp and Gardermoen races, the Sweden and Norway rounds of the UEM European championship, to continue the help and support of Job Heezen, who is running the Zodiac "Godfather VI" injected Nitro Harley that he has bought from the Zodiac Racing team for the first year. Job has done some very impressive passes on the new surface of the Drachten drag strip, which included a couple of 4.4 second eight mile passes.

Roel and Vincent at their initial "push-back" trails Job launching the Zodiac "Godfather VI" at Drachten
(Photo courtesy of Remco Scheelings)

See you at the racetrack!

Thursday May 20, 2008

Zodiac Racing's 2008 season plans and progress

As some of you have probably noticed, the Zodiac Racing team is taking a new direction for the 2008 season. They are going to run a supercharger again, something they have not done since the famous double engined "Double Dutch" Puma Triumph, which Ton ran until 1988 (this bike is still very much alive in the hands of Frenchman Jean Claude Draperi).
Roel ended his initial year riding for the Zodiac team very successfully, with a third place in the UEM European Championship and an event win in Sweden. So it was decided that he is going to continue as the team's jockey and even though Roel has found out that the Nitro burning twins can be high-spirited and untamed beasts with a mind of their own, he enjoyed riding them very much. The fact that he is also becoming a valued help in the workshop, where his engineering and mechanical skills are "upgraded" a bit, proofs he is becoming a real Zodiac Team member.
The idea was to have Roel running the "Godfather VI" injected bike until the new supercharged bike was ready and running. But Job Heezen decided to retire from his early retirement and he wanted to "step-up" to Top Fuel. So when he asked Ton if he could buy the "Godfather VI" injected bike, the plans changed a bit.
Job bought the "Godfather VI" bike from Ton and is going to campaign it for the 2008 season. And with a 800 foot try-out in the snow at the Easter Thunderball, being a 7.2 seconds pass at 163MPH (4.4 seconds and 158MPH on the eight mile), it seems like the SuperTwin Top Fuel class has gained another strong contender. Too bad some small mechanical issues stopped Job from progressing his ET and that his maiden pass was his only pass that weekend.

With the much needed ignition technology available to control the power output of supercharged V-Twin engines and with Ton and Vincent getting more familiarized with CNC machining and the ability to create more complex engine parts in their own workshop, the Zodiac team decided to go for uncharted territories and build them selves a brand new supercharged bike with a "small" 1684cc (103CI) 45 degree 4-valve head pushrod engine. Current "off-the-shelf" engine configurations for the push-rod V-Twins are not intended for small stroke and moderate bore engines, so the team has designed their own engine with the configuration they want and have put their Bridgeport INTERACT1 Mk2 CNC mill into overtime.
The UEM SuperTwin Top Fuel rules allow for bigger engines to be run with a supercharger, but among other reasons, Ton and Vincent decided to go for a 1684cc engine, so it is allowed to run over 90% Nitromethane (supercharged twins between 1700cc and 2000cc are restricted to a maximum of 90% Nitromethane).

The engine has a short 3-5/8" (92mm) stroke and a 4-1/4" (108mm) bore and the team is planning to spin it up to a maximum of 7500 RPM which is a lot more then the 5000 RPM they were running with their injected bike. For the engine cases, the they started with huge blocks of 7075-T6 aluminum and after some aluminum excavation on their conventional machines, the blocks spend hours on the Bridgeport CNC mill and were machined to close tolerances, where they got their final shape as engine cases.
The 32CrMoV13 high quality steel crank has been designed by the team and has the unique "splined" output shaft again. This design is similar to the 5-1/4" version of this crank they had made for the injected bike they ran last year and this turned out to be a race proven, zero failure construction.
Eight inch rods will pump the pistons through the home made barrels and with this high rod-ratio, the ratio between engine stroke and rod length, the team is aiming for longevity and performance at the same time again. One of their main goals apart from extreme high performance is to build a reliable and consistent engine as the Zodiac Racing team's motto has always been "consistency wins you races and championships". The cylinder heads are the same 4-valve heads they have been running for many years now, as they believe this will again give greater performance, with less stress on engine components. The primary drive and 3-stage centrifugal clutch are finished as well. Engineering Top Fuel motorcycle clutches is something they are quite familiar with right now, and the clutch has the teams unique "one piece hub" and "double bearing" design, where the clutch hub runs inside the pully and the clutch output shaft is carried inside the clutch hat, as well as the clutch hub, giving it greater stability and reliability.
The team has now pulled the frame-jig and tube-bender from under the dust cover and have started with the motor plates and chassis.

With Job running the "Godfather VI" injected bike this year, it means that the team can now focus on "Godfather VII" supercharged bike and progress quicker without the time it takes to maintain a Top Fuel bike during the race season. It also means that they will not come out to race until the new bike is ready. The team has set their hopes for the Alastaro race, the second race of the UEM European championship round, but will have to work extremely hard to make that race.
The Zodiac Racing Team will be at the first UEM race of the season to help out Job and his crew and learn them the ropes of Top Fuel motorcycle racing during the Main Event held at Santapod Raceway. They will also be supplying racers with tires and parts out of the Zodiac Race Shop again and hopefully get some R&R, at the track-side to watch some close racing.

See you at the racetrack!

Monday March 10, 2008

Zodiac Racing's 2007 season review

With the debut year for the new rider, the Zodiac Drag Racing team did not have any real expectations for the 2007 season. The only goals they had set for their selves was to at least qualify for all events and to "make some rounds". In the end Ton and Vincent with their new "jockey" Roel Koedam, a long time friend of the family, turned out to be more competitive then they had hoped for and even took an event win in the process. Except for the first race where they had qualified 4th, the Zodiac Nitro Harley was a top three qualifier at every event and at mid season was the number two in the championship, less then one round from the number one at that point, eventual 2007 championship winner Lorenz Stauble. Then the gremlins turned up and stopped them from having a real chance for the 2007 UEM SuperTwin Top-Fuel crown. But the final round of the championship was a huge highlight for the whole class, with stellar performance of all the Twins and the most exiting qualifying and eliminations in the history of the class.

The first UEM race of the 2007 season, the Main Event, was both a high and a low. This was the first time out again, which made it very emotional for everybody and with Roel Koedam in the riders seat now, things were still very unnatural. Roel Koedam ended up qualifying 4th, and hit the 6 second and 200MPH barier in the second qualifying pass, which was more than the Zodiac crew had hoped for in this first race. This brought a smile on everybody's face and from that moment they knew that the new combination could work. Sadly the rain kicked in and this never stopped for the rest of the weekend, so "The Main Event" became "The Rain Event" and not a single Twin made another pass on the Santapod racetrack.

Next stop was Finland a race where the Zodiac bike struggled a bit. For this season, the bike was equipped with a new ignition system. This, the lack of traction and the fact that Roel was still adapting to the bike, made it hard to interpret the data properly and make the right tuning calls. The team did manage to improve their E.T. to a 6.90 seconds, which was good for the third qualifying spot. But with the knowledge that the bike was running 6.6 second index times before, they knew things were not improving the way it could.
In the first round of eliminations Roel managed to wack the throttle fully open and keep it open till the finish line for the first time. These were signs he was getting more comfortable on the bike. The odd thing was that this actually made it run slower. Because of the wide-open-throttle, the engine was finally breathing properly. Therefor it also ran a lot leaner, which resulted in a very disappointing 7.1 seconds loss against Hans Olav's 6.98 seconds. The bike was running so lean now, that it scuffed the cylinders. This meant they had to seriously change strategy for Mantorp Park. Their luck was that it started raining after the first round of eliminations, so they did not loose too many points in the championship chase.

With the damaged pistons and cylinders from Alastaro fixed and the knowledge the bike was lean and detonating, the Zodiac Fuel Harley got a setup for Mantorp of which the team were sure it was so rich, "It would poor out fuel everywhere". Mantorp is run over the 1/8th mile for the Nitro Bikes and to everybody's surprise the bike actually made it to the finish line with a pretty decent E.T. out of the trailer. After some tuning effort and two more qualifying rounds, which included one very spectacular round in the dark where the crowd could enjoy the header flames of the Nitro Twins, they ended up in the second spot with a 4.41 @ 170.6 MPH pass. Roel was finally getting real comfortable on the bike and with the known consistency of the Zodiac bike, the competition was starting to see Roel as a serious contender.
During eliminations Roel ploughed his way through the field with strong numbers and was the only one running 4.4 second passes. At the final he came up against Lorenz Stauble of the Erbacher team. With both riders side-by-side on their back wheel, Roel made it to the finish-line first with a 4.486 @ 167.8MPH pass. Margin of victory: 0.0517 seconds. In the Championship Roel climbed to the number 2 spot, only 6 points behind the number one.

With the bike running like clockwork and less then one round behind the number one in the championship, hopes were high for the Gardermoen quarter mile. The team had setup the bike a little sharper for this event and right off the trailer it showed... 6.68 @ 206MPH. The Zodiac team was back to their "normal performance" and took the provisional number one spot in the qualifying ladder. But then the weird stuff started. Qualifying round #2, cam broke. Qualifying #3, bike idled too high so it was decided to shut it off. Nothing really happened other then the throttle plate that was stuck a little, but when you're qualified #1, you do not take any chances. Qualifying #4, The bike left real hard... up in smoke.... up in smoke again.... front wheel up in the air until the 1000 foot lights.... and the primary belt broke. It was a wild ride that Roel definitely enjoyed big time, but you will not get very good E.T.'s that way, so the Zodiac team ended up qualifying in the #2 spot with the 6.68 pass they did in the first session.
The next morning the bike was fired up for the warm-up and the Zodiac Harley did not sounded strong at all. Each time the throttle was opened, raw fuel came out of the exhaust and the RPM dropped instead of climbed. After a quick inspection of the telemetry data it was concluded that something mechanical had failed and the engine was being checked. The team quickly found that the cam gear had seized and turned, causing the cams and the ignition timing to be 30 degrees off. Quickly the cam cover was taken off, but by the time the new cams were installed the first SuperTwin bikes were started up for their first elimination round. Not making the first round was a huge disappointment for the team, something that had never happened before and all hopes for winning the UEM European championship were gone.

The European Finals at Santapod Raceway was the final round of the Zodiac Team. The bike was back to its normal performance and in the final qualifying session Roel did a great pass of 6.696 seconds with 206.55MPH, which qualified him comfortably in the number 3 spot. Both the number one and two qualifiers, Gunter Sohn and Lorenz Stauble, were also in the 6.6 seconds zone and Hans Olav Olstad qualified 4th with a solid 6.72 seconds performance. With another 3 bikes qualified in the 6 seconds bracket, this probably made it the quickest SuperTwin field ever.
Race-day turned out to be a real thriller. After the smoke had cleared, the top 4 qualifiers all made it through to the semi finals... and all did it with a 6.6 second pass. In the semi's the Zodiac team met Lo again, and this turned out to be the race of the season. Lo was away first and Roel was quickly following with only 0.015 seconds difference between them. At the 60ft the Zodiac twin was already making up the start-line difference and at the 330ft Roel was in the lead. Both bikes were carrying the front wheel in the air until the 1000ft mark and at that point Roel was still in the lead. But Lo was making up ground and just passed Roel at the stripe with only 0.0129 seconds between them. With both bike travelling way over 200 MPH this means a margin of 1.5 inch. The Zodiac Nitro V-Twin's 6.657 pass was a tiny bit quicker then Lorenz Stauble's 6.659 seconds effort, but it was lost on the start-line by a mere 0.013 seconds. That is Drag Racing!
Even though they were out, the Zodiac team were still pretty excited about the way the season had ended. Roel ran his quickest E.T. in the last pass of the season, the team was back at the performance level when Ton was still riding the bike and managed to earn a respectable #3 spot in the European championship.

The team would like to congratulate Lorenz Stauble and the complete Erbacher team for winning the #1 plate in not only SuperTwin Top Fuel, but in FIA Top Fuel car as well.
The Zodiac team would also like to welcome Job Heezen into the team and wish him all the succes for the future. Job is going to experience Top Fuel up close and personal for the first time, as he is the new owner of the bike Roel ran in 2007, "The Godfather VI". For the 2008 season Roel will be riding an new bike, "The Godfather VII". The new ride will be a supercharged 1680cc Nitro burning Top Fuel Harley and the team is very busy constructing it right now. A news update about the progress will follow soon.

See you at the racetrack!

Friday June 15, 2007

Ton Pels receives British Drag Racing Hall of Fame's 'Bootsie' trophy.

The British Drag Racing Hall of Fame has presented its first overseas member Ton Pels with his 'Bootsie' trophy at the FIA\UEM Main Event, at Santapod Raceway. The award was presented by Selection Panel member Ian Messenger who himself competed in Europe and the USA racing the famed Pegasus Top Fuel Bike which now has pride of place in the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham.

The British Drag Racing Hall Of Fame honours and preserves for all time the achievements of some of the greatest legends of British Drag Racing, that have made a lasting impact and significant difference to the development of British drag racing.

You can read Ton's biography and find out more by visiting the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame website.

You can read more about Ton's Drag Racing career by visiting the Ton Pels and his 35 years of Dragracing page.

Friday June 15, 2007

Roel Koedam's debuts on the Zodiac Fuel Harley at the "Rain" Event.

With the Easter testing being more destructive than we hoped for, the team had just enough time to get the engine back together for the first race of the season. "The spare engine wasn't ready yet, and with the total destruction of the engine at Easter, we now had two engines to complete in a short amount of time." Ton Pels said.
Another thing the Zodiac team had to "test" at Easter was their new pilot, Roel Koedam. And with the catastrophic first pass at Easter, he was still on probation going to his first competitive outing. As testing was cut back to one half-pass, the goals for the first race were adjusted a bit as well. The strategy was simply to try and qualify and hopefully make it through the first round of elimination.
At the first qualifying day Roel didn't disappoint us. Still on a soft tune-up, he managed to qualify number 4 with a 6 second pass and at over 200 MPH. This was his first ever full pass on the bike. The Zodiac team was ready for the next day of qualifying with a more serious tune-up and track conditions that were excellent. But then the rain started, and it never stopped. For two consecutive days it rained and the high hopes all drained with the water.
Never the less, Roel is no longer on probation. The bike was in perfect condition after the two runs it made and the Zodiac team knows they can be competitive in the new formation.

Roel is currently number 4 in the championship and because only qualifying points were given, he is a mere 3 points behind points leader Lorenz Stauble.
Next stop for the FIM/UEM Super Twin Top Fuel championship is Finland's Alastaro Circuit, July 5-8.

2007 Top 5 Points standing after Round 1:

Position Start # Rider Points

1 ST3 Lorenz Stauble 28

2 ST4 Gunther Sohn 27

3 ST5 Hans Olav Olstad 26

4 ST22 Roel Koedam 25

5 ST6 Joachim Riemer 24