Top Dead Center

Today from Las Vegas Championship speedway short track on ice. It's hot

then. Blake tests Yamaha's new midnight road star cruiser

and Tommy G dials in MX suspension

with private here, Tyson Hazel

in our project of the week.

Hey guys, welcome to T DC. And an event you rarely see on television.

I'm al neighbors. And today it's speedway with studs, check out these two wheeled alcohol burners on ice

in a city that's no stranger to living on the edge. 25 men came to the Orleans Arena to push it to the absolute limits.

I'm pumped up with a $25,000 purse and five G's for the winter. There was every reason to be pumped up.

This is undoubtedly the biggest purse money we've ever raised for.

Oh,

that's a lot of motivation. 5000 couples of motivation.

It's a pretty prestigious event. You know, a lot of attention and a lot of media attention. So we're looking to do a good win here tonight.

It's huge and quite frankly, I mean, you got the best riders from all over the best man's gonna win for some. It's been a while since they've raced. But couldn't resist. Last time was gone 10 years ago. Maybe it's been some years since I've been here. I forgot it.

Few bits of the setup, I think I got it. Figured out a lot of guys, you know, rolled ice like a few years back and they haven't rode the series and they're coming out thinking they're gonna smoke this

Vler. So, let's see,

from the bikes to the tracks. Ice speedway is unique.

Ice speedway, 16 guys basically trying to kill themselves in a hockey arena.

It's definitely one of the

most exciting and

original extreme sport speedway racers are crazier. We wouldn't be doing it,

but

I don't think badly of crazy. You crazy is the good part of life to race on one of these machines. Crazy is an understatement,

no breaks, rooms

on

me

and it's just basically the frame weighs about 100 pounds and the engine weighs about 100 and 50

it flies for what it is. Bikes do 0 to 60 in about 2.5 seconds, 500 ccs with about 75 horsepower. So they accelerate real fast. They get around the track real fast

and um, you can go front to back real quick or back to front, turn right, you go left. Basically, you do a big start, you dump the clutch, there's no shifting.

You drive to the corner when you see Jesus, you turn left

and you go from there like a total outlaw sprint car racing and hockey combined. I mean, it's just, it's wild,

it's wild. You can't beat

it. There can be some crashes, you know, it's tight. It's very small arena, but you can get is like 60 mile an hour out of these

arenas.

That bike will spin around and you'll come up and hit the wall, which you would never like to do and

that bike will come right at you. I mean,

so if you ever fall off the bike, I mean, just let that baby go

the close corners for

it, we're going fast and there's not much room for.

It's a very unique corporation. It's the oldest corporation.

It's kind of like being a Jedi master of the motorcycle racing world as far as I'm concerned when it comes to upright and lay down motors, you don't need to be Yoda to know which is best for the ice.

I think too much horsepower, too much of a spinning motor is not good. You need something kind of grunts like a tractor.

So a lot of the upright bikes tend to work really well there.

I think the, the uprights work as well, if not better. And right now the top four points, three out of four are on upright. So I've

been

that suits

itself

a little

and I prefer the upright on the indoor ice works a little better in the corners. But a lot of guys, you know, are using the way down configuration,

which, um,

those, those motors tend to drive a little bit harder

but, um,

you give up in the corners in a tight turning for the speed on the straightaway

Charlie.

Yeah,

having a fast bike isn't the only thing you need to race speedway. My nickname is my dog

man,

Colorado, Cowboy Rock and Ronnie

dummy.

You're breaking my leg. Mad dog,

Young Gun. I don't have a nickname. It's just Brad

Hillbilly because I'm from my town and I am a hillbilly more often than not. It's announcers that come up with us.

They give us a nickname and tag it on us and sometimes it sticks forever.

Awesome riders, awesome bikes, awesome show.

We'll be back with more ice speedway right after this

proving the theory. There's no surface. Motorcyclists won't race on.

Here's more action on the rocks from Vegas

going to the races, aren't we? It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be cold.

Nerves were icing over as the racers were zoned in on the record purse money.

So it's gonna be

a lot of blood buff

outlet. And I tell you, it's gonna be a bit wild and crazy because I just got a feeling

for the people, all that money so bad. Personally, myself, I'm not out to hurt anybody but

I'm here to ride pretty fierce,

you know, just the balls to the walls

thing. There's no holding back when the money gets big, you know,

for some, it wasn't about the money. I'm riding for all the tour of strippers dogs

and my life,

the top four racers automatically advanced to the finals while the rest had to qualify on Friday night.

Yeah,

be great. A

busted ankle wasn't going to stop Bill Hermant from competing in this one who left the sport so much. And I'm not gonna give up a race if we took a boot and chopped the boot all up. So we put it around the cast and tape it. He's just very hardcore determined. He lives

to

meet this ice racing.

Some, a big heart and lots of drive aren't enough as Bill crashed twice in his opening race ending his night premature.

It's tough.

I want to win.

You know, I'd pay, I'd pay to race.

I think these guys that

about racing and they don't make this, they don't make that.

They had to look where they'd be without it.

With only 12 races advancing. The rest of the field wasn't shedding any tears for Bill.

Yeah, we're here to rock and roll.

Kind of exciting. A little bit nervous,

hoping for the best after two scratch sheets and an LCQ six racers faced off in the main event.

All six knew they'd be going for the jackpot the next night. But bragging rights were on the line. Ted Taylor stayed out front for the win but he considered this one just the two

I got, uh, all night of practice. Top four guys didn't. So I got an advance

scratch finishes to determine the remaining six spots. And desert racer guy Jessup

was feeling confident. I got two third place finishes out there.

It should be

good enough to race tomorrow.

No, didn't make it.

No.

Gotta put the bike on the trailer.

Uh

You know, I really looking forward to, uh, to Saturday, but

I, I guess that's the brakes. There's always next year gonna go out and hit some uh frozen lake beds over next year.

We'll get out here and we're gonna tear them up.

Guy was planning for next year. The top 16 racers competed

there was no,

it's exciting. It's wild and you can't

get beaten. The folks out here are going to get

everything they paid for the ticket.

They got their money's worth and heat two race two which featured three of the top four racers in the world.

I have to say that will be

tough one, but

I like him. Tough

and edge held off, James Mann, John Grant and Chris strong to lock down the final round.

Charlie's a good rider.

Good rider's got a lot of experience. He's been five times world champion

next time I should beat him. Hopefully that wasn't going to happen as the man's night ended in the runoff race

and suffered three broken ribs, a separated shoulder and broken dreams of winning five greens almost three years to the day. The edge broke his feet.

But on this night, his comeback was complete as he smoked the field to win his sixth Ice title and a huge race jackpot.

Everything came together on paper just as I put it down and my bike was flawless,

like, worked excellent.

Went with each, each race took them one at a time.

I tried not to beat up myself

and, uh, I, I pulled it off. You know, I just thought it would be so great to be able to redeem myself as

the grandfather of ice speedway

hats off to some of the toughest guys on wheels.

Stay with us up next. We'll test Yamaha's tough. New Midnight Royal Star

attention cruiser guys. If you want raw power and retro styling but hate high prices. This could be your next heavyweight.

It's Yamaha special edition Midnight Star and for 13 grand you get plenty of sex appeal and plenty of low end kick on the highway.

They made the motor bigger.

The motor is now a 1670 cc push rod 48 degree V twin.

And the nice thing about this motor is that it's just got heaps and heaps of low down bottom torque

with 102 inches. It should. The world's largest air cooled V twin features, four valve heads fed by a 40 millimeter macoy,

a

beefed up clutch and five speed gearbox connect the power through a belt drive.

I think the bike shifts excellent for a cruiser

there's a lot of cruisers out there that don't shift well and this is one that shifts. Awesome.

So it's got a lot of attributes that uh that most cruisers don't have

in a class where image is everything. The midnight has the goodies, chrome action and blacked out motor vibration, dampening handlebars, iso,

floorboards, wide wide walls, cast wheels and totally chromed out front boards.

Classic styling continues with the chrome speedo panel and studded leather seat, passenger rest and bags,

but it also carries some new technology.

This thing has just awesome brakes that most cruisers are lacking

brakes that are based off of the YZFR one.

So these are four piston calipers with 298 millimeter rotors that can get this 712 pound motorcycle stopped in a hurry,

but once it is stopped maneuvering those 700 pounds can be a handful.

Our

only other gripe

the windshield,

the edge of it sits exactly in my vision when I'm cruising and, and it can be a little bit distracting sometimes because the the edge isn't transparent. So sometimes it's a little bit annoying and you have to adjust yourself.

Granted no bike is perfect but this one is a whole lot of cruiser for the price.

Next. Tommy G sorts out suspension basics in our project of the week.

Welcome back to Top Dead Center. I'm Tommy G. Every privateer knows if you want to compete with the factory guys.

You have to take every advantage possible one of the keys after market suspension.

That's why we sent the forks and shock to factory connection

where they were given a custom rebuild to the bike's owners. Exact weight,

getting things back on the bikes was easy. Now is where the fun starts.

Today. We're at 800 Motocross Park in Crofton, Kentucky where we're gonna tune this w in with a little help from a buddy of mine from Florida

who's made a name for himself with BS Y racing team.

He's number 84 privateer. Tyson Hazel

dude began racing at age four turned pro at 16

and has had several top 10 finishes including seventh at the 2003 Daytona Supercross.

This kid's well on his way.

Hey, Tyson, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks a lot for having me, seen you guys building the bike on TV and can't wait to get out there and do a couple laps for you. Well, that's great. Today, I'm gonna show you guys at home how to tune your own suspension.

And Tyson, he's gonna show you what to look for out on the track.

But before he does, we'll start with the rear shock and make two measurements to calculate ride or

SAR

or

SAG is how much the bike squats when the rider sits

first with the bike on the stand measure from the rear axle to a spot directly above on the fender.

Now take the bike off the stand and have your rider sit down

measure again from the previous mark.

The difference between the two measurements is rider

sa

I measured 110 millimeters and the optimum number factory connection provided was 104.

That means we have too much rider

S

A

to fix this. We need to increase the preload on the spring

first loosen the jam dot

Then rotate the spring adjuster clockwise.

We'll go 1.5 turns.

We'll do some more fine tuning once Tyson gets out there and gets a feel for the bike. Plus this is a good chance to see what the pros look for during a suspension test.

When you're going in the corners, there's kicker bumps,

you know, the rough stuff, make sure the bike's not kicking

up and down because that could be really bad if you were to crash or swapping side to side, going through the rough stuff.

When you come off the top of the jump, make sure the back end isn't overpowering. The front, throw you over the handlebars,

that's the three main starting points and then, then you fine tune it from there

to make it handle. Perfect.

Tyson said the bike had some head shake and is washing out in the corners,

which means the front suspension is too stiff, go to the bottom of your forks and adjust a setting one or two clicks to the left. This will soften the fork to allow more travel.

If Tyson complained the suspension wasn't rebounding correctly,

I would have to adjust the clips up top. Never more than one or two at a time.

Rebound is how quickly the fork comes up after being compressed. Left, click softens right click hardens.

Nor did we have to adjust compression or rebound at the rear.

On Yamaha's, the rear shot compression setting is up top with the rebound. Click at the bottom.

We asked Tyson Hazel to come out here and run this YZ through its paces.

But the real test today is gonna be done by this guy right here. This is 16 year old Joseph, the actual owner of our YZ project bike. What's going on, dude, Tommy, man, I can't thank you enough for hopping up the YZ. I'm just ready to ride, man. I can't wait to watch you ride. Definitely. So, how long have you been racing now, Joseph? Oh

man, I'd say about 2.5 years. Well, that's cool. He's like a lot of you guys out there just starting out, but today there's one exception. He's getting tips from a pro.

Well, man, ready to ride your bike yet. Oh, definitely, dude. Hey, thanks for uh all the tips and stuff, man. Oh,

no problem. You go out just uh be careful, get used to the bike for a little bit, ride a couple laps easy

and

check the suspension and see if it's too stiff, too, too soft. It's probably gonna be too stiff because it's set up for me right now.

So it might be a little bit too stiff. So be careful track real hard pack and

have fun. All right, thanks again, man. No problem,

Joseph and Tyson are about the same size

and even though their suspension setups will be different,

the way to tune is exactly the same.

Remember, guys, suspension tuning is no big deal, but the payoff on the track can be

thanks to 800 Motocross Park and of course, Tyson

Hazel.

Hey, thanks a lot for having me. I appreciate it. I appreciate you coming out.

Let's kick it back to Allen over at the shop.

All right guys. Now it's time to check out some new gear. Now, if you ride like Tyson and Joe, you'll need some good safety equipment. This is the asterisk knee protection system from cell. It has a light carbon fiber frame with steel hinges and padded armor over the kneecap adapters, let you adjust for dying calf contours. These are a must for Motocross

AEC braces retail for $549. Now, there's a new player in off road head protection.

This is the XCRMX helmet for Moose Racing USA.

It features a very light composite shell with a large face opening, a vented mouthpiece and a fully adjustable visor.

The XCR is available at parts and limited dealers and suggested retail is 100 and $39 now for you Harley guys wanting more power check this out.

It's Excel's high performance ignition module for Big Twins and sports.

It features eight adjustable switches that let you select single or dual firing rev limiter modes and 13 different advanced curves. It's a simple power bolton

that retails for $270. Well, that's all the time for this week, but don't miss T DC next week

when everybody's got valves. It's awesome action at the four Stroke MX Nationals.

Well, guys, thanks for watching. Ride safe. We'll see you then.