UKDRN

Hi , was searching a while ago trying to find one of my old bikes and, low and behold , I found DC 102 . I raced Wild Dream for 2 or 3 years in the early to mid eighties at L M and mainly Santa Pod . When I bought the bike it was fitted with with a big heavy slider clutch , this did not work out , because the massive inertia it held would ,half the time, snap the drive chain and dump it on the strip when I let it go . In the end I modified an amc / norton clutch and loaded it with commando sintered bronze plates . I set it up and had zero problems. The picture of the bike on here up against the gantry at Santa Pod shows me in my black and yellow leathers . The black casing on the left side I made to cover up the clutch etc. I presume it still has its Bewley 2 speed gearbox . Again when I first had the bike it came with a baby Hagon fuel tank , that was too small because with the start up , burn out and run it would very nearly empty the tank and was leaning out . I made a bigger tank and that did the trick . I ran it with 9 to 1 std pistons and ran the blower at engine speed, I never fitted new rings , never ever had a problem with the engine the gunk you see in the pics is blow by . I used to change the oil every run , just decent 20/50 . At first I ran the bike on methanol but soon changed the main jet on the 2 inch SU and added nitrro . The bike was very consistent and ended up running low tens , knocking on the nines . Normally 25 then for a final 40 percent . In my final year at S P I entered 5 meetings , I had five wins with one being in senior bike . Highest T speed was , as I remember 143. I have to thank Drag bike builder and racer Brian Smith for his advice and help over those years . Brian built a Honda bike with a wade blower , I rode it at one meeting at the Pod , it was called the Pepsi lipsmacker, and had partial sponsorship from Pepsi .Wild dream was a fairly heavy but v well built bike . I cannot claim kudos for the engine build and it proved itself under my destructive hands . The front wheel was Suzuki 250 , rear , cannot remember , I rebuilt the mag , I think . I sold it but did consider another year with more nitro to get into the 9's .Good luck with it

Thanks for posting the info, it made for interesting reading indeed.

Apologies for being so lte in responding, but I least I made in 2023 (just)!

You mentioned the Bewley gearbox – yep, the bike came with a Bewley, so gonna assume it was the original, which incidentally had the ‘thicker’ gears (as used by the sidecar grasstrack guys). Inspection revealed the internals to be in very good order, so new bearings were fitted just as a matter of course.

The tank that was fitted was a shortened Hagon or Hagon-style speedway unit, which I replaced with a larger capacity unit similar to that found on Mighty Mouse. Gonna guess my replacement was originally from a lawn mower or stationary engine.

Yeah, front wheel Suzuki 250 (poss 350) twin leading shoe, along with period Suzuki forks (guessing Hustler etc).

A quick question – it would be nice to see some photos, do you by chance have any you can post?
Cheers