North American HPV Championships pictures

North American HPRA HPV Championships
August 31st - Sepember 1st, 2001 - Montreal, Quebec

	Enrico Lorini's brand spanking new Norus low racer, built by race director Giles Porier. Most of the stock class racers from the Montreal area rode recumbents built by Giles.
The tiny and very pointy Kingsbury K2 remains on the Yellowbike VW Beetle after having problems being launched the previous day, due to the extremely small gap beween the front wheel and the fairing. This brand new carbon fiber bodied bike featured the eliptical "K" drive, and custom made everything, including the aluminum disk wheels, which sported experimental 2 inch wide Michelin tires.
	Rob English's Baron Race is Optima's race version of the popular low racer, and is a couple inches lower than their normal Baron model. Rob faired in the chain ring, seat bottom, and chain stays to provide a slight aero advantage. A side by side comparison showed that this bike is about exactly the same height as the Chalenge Jester.
This extremely low streamliner, owned by Martin Mario, was built in the early 1980s, and has a very laid back custom lowracer as the chassis. Martin raced this bike in the Super Street class.
	Yvon Chiasson raced this compact long wheelbase, remote steered, RWD low racer
When this Varna streamliner showed up, I was worried that I may be lost in the dust, as these bikes have turned up an impressive track record. Fortunately for me, it stayed on the trailer the entire weekend.
	This Toxy lowracer that Bentrider Online's Bryan Ball brought to the races has almost everything. FWD, disk brakes and a monotube rear suspension. It's very pretty besides...
The wild looking finish on Robert Lafleur's extremely fast "Zebra bike", is due to the many iterations of body filler and sanding to make a perfectly smooth and straight surface. He also recently added the rear wheel fairing. This bike was raced by Robert's significant other, Fabienne Vigneault, and is a FWD "tub" bike, utilizing a lot of carbon fiber in it's construction.
	Robert Lafleur's "old" bike. Robert faired in the rear wheel of this FWD "tub" bike to keep up with Fabienne during training rides.
Frank Geyer's "Team Challenge" Jester low racer, sporting brand new Garrie Hill wheel disks. Below are close ups of the disks with the hinged valve access door open and closed.

	Streamliners lined up waiting to race. In front is the Terry Hreno/Infinity "Mini" Moby, raced by Doc Pearson. Second is the Norus streamliner, built by Giles Porier, and raced by Rob Wood. Third is Kevin Berls' streamliner. Fourth is is Warren Beauchamp's Barracuda streamliner, and last is Martin Mario's vintage streamliner.
The start of Saturday's lap race, with black wheel disked speedsters Rob English and Frank Geyer heading out to take an early lead.
	Bill Murphy on his venerable Tour Easy, racing during the lap race.
David Atwood races a fast looking Reynolds WishBone RT.
	Frank Geyer races his Challenge Jester. Bryan Ball raced another pretty blue Jester for the Challenge team.
George Reynolds races a dual 700C Wishbone RT, with tailbox. George came very close to winning all the events in his class, but was disqualified in the LMO due to a rules mixup.
	Michael Beresford races his FWD rear steer trike. The workmanship on this trike was wonderful, but exibiting some of the idiosyncrasies of a rear steer vehicle, it crashed at least once dring the lap race.
Neil Hill races his Challenge Tai Fun mid height racer, with Katana monoblade fork, disk brakes, and rear wheel disks.
	Paul Pancella races his new M5 low racer. Paul placed in the top 5 with the aid of this new bike.
Peter Stull, "The Bicycle Man", races a Reynolds Wishbone with stock Reynolds Coroplast tailbox.
	Rob English powers down the front straightaway, with a backdrop of streamliners waiting their turn at racing.
Rob Wood in the Norus streamliner cruises down the back straight.
	Warren Beauchamp in the Barracuda leads Rob Wood during the the 40 lap race.
Race director and prolific builder of 'bents, Giles Porier pauses by his van door before heading to the awards ceremony. That's part of Giles' wife to the right.
	Warren Beauchamp (in the yellow jersey) shakes hands with one of the race sponsors before heading to the podium to take the "1" place. Rob Wood (left) and Kevin Berls (right) stand on the "2" and "3" places, respectively.

Race Report

Bill Murphy and I made the trip from the Chicago area to the NACs in Montreal, Quebec. It was a rather
uneventful 17 hour drive through the rather dry and scrubby Canadian flatlands.

Thursday evening we left the hotel and proceeded to theSt. Eustache race track for pre-registration. I was supposed to lead the way to the track for some of the other racers, but I lost some at the parking lot. Oops... I later heard comments such as "I was amazed at how well your trailer took the corners". Sorry!

Friday was dedicated to the .decimach races, and a 40+ mile race for the streamliners, on the 4.3 mile long Blainville PMG test track. It was a pretty windy and overcast day. I took some time to put on a 68 tooth chainring "just in case" the track was really fast, and then made one run at 44 MPH, using the whole 4.3 mile track to warm up and get up to speed. The wind pushed me around a bit, but wasn't too bad, and fortunately it was quartering to the rear so it didn't actively hinder the 200 meter runs. The track was pretty bumpy, so I was happy I had the front suspension.

Robert Lafluer had previously decided not to run the the .decimach, but when he saw that I went *only* 44 MPH, he decided to pony up the cash for the entrance fee and give it a try. After the first run, where he lost his chain while shifting over a bump just before the timing traps, he ran 42 MPH. Robert was racing his "old" racer, not the Zebra bike. Robert's S.O., Fabienne, was racing his Zebra bike in preparation for her upcoming women's speed record attempts.

Robert Wood, in the Norus streamliner, also experiencing some problems with the rough track, launched himself over a bump and flew for 4 feet just before the timing traps. After a couple runs, he ended up with a 41 MPH speed.

Everyone else was under 40MPH, including Rob English in the Kingsbury K2, which Rob beat himself up in by crashing repatedly on launch due to inadequate steering lock. Rob did a 38 MPH run, and made everyone move away from the track as he went by as he was using a large portion of the track to remain upright. He later returned on his unfaired Optima low racer and went even faster.

After we returned from lunch, a large thunderstorm rolled through the area, and as we only had the track until 3:30pm, the lap race was cancelled.

On Saturday at St. Eustache speedway, the weather was sunny, cold and windy. This track was just over a mile long and was bumpy in places.

Rob English won the 26 mile stock class race, followed by Frank Geyer and Enrico Lorini.

I won the 42 mile faired class race, followed by Rob Wood. We mixed it up for a couple laps and then I started passing him on the corners due to the suspension. I think it would have been a lot closer race if he had a suspension too.

Last man out was a series of sprints behind a motorized pace vehicle. The final heat was a close battle between Rob Wood and myself. We traded a little paint at one point and then I leaned so far over in a turn that my fairing scraped and I though I would crash, but I recovered. We were still neck in neck at the last corner. Rob went low and I went high and
cranked it, and managed to squeak through the corner before him and then beat him by a bike length.

Results on the AVPHQ site soon: