A Brief History of Team Fang

TEAM 'Fang' has been around since 1993, and today is composed of me; Carl (crew chief etc. etc.), Sharon (chief of everything), Bryony (mechanic and rider in waiting) and Dominic (rider).

I began sprinting at the age of 18 in 1972 on my roadbike, and despite my Dad's attempts to get me to follow him into grass track racing, was hooked on the mix of riding and engineering skill on display. The noise was a big factor too of course.
When I met Sharon she rapidly became infected by the biking bug and frequent trips to Avon Park Raceway were an essential part of life until Dominic and Bryony were born.

IN the late 80's we got back into sprinting with Sharon riding the current race bike; a Yamaha XZ550 V twin. Dominic displayed promise early on when he made a bike in the pits out of an old tyre and various bits of wood!

WHEN he reached the age of 8 it was time to begin. A dreadful looking Honda PC50 moped was acquired free of charge as a basis for the new machine. We will never forget the expression of horror on Dom's face when he saw the bike, closely followed by a bout of severe depression!

HOWEVER, fuelled by gallons of my home-brewed wine, and with the aid of hacksaw, brazing torch and big hammers the moped was magically transformed into 'The Fang'. To find out why such a ridiculous name was chosen you will have to follow the Nervous Norvus link.

The XZ550's handling was pretty horrible, even in a straight line. Sharon hangs on at Westonzoyland as it tries overtake itself.

THE Fang's tiny 50cc pushrod engine with single gear and automatic clutch did not produce the dramatic performance Dominic had in mind. Not surprising really with 1.8hp at 5700rpm. Over the next 3 years the engine was eventually pushed beyond the limit. Compression was raised to 13:1, a wild camshaft operating larger stainless steel valves, lightened crank, slipper clutch, uprated oil pump and much much more. Rules stated that the tiny standard carb had to stay but it was bored to 11mm!

1/4 mile ET's dropped from the high 29's to reliable low 23's, and speed up to 55mph. The Fang was almost unbeatable with an estimated 6hp at 10900rpm, and set many track records. Development continued and at its final competitive outing recorded a 19 at 62mph. The second run resulted in major engine carnage when the barrel pulled out of the crankcase at an estimated 14700rpm. Circumstances were changing and so we retired from sprinting to concentrate on mountain bike racing for a while.

SHARON had continued to race various small bikes before our retirement and these included a Suzuki GSX250 and her favourite, a Honda 125 twin. The engine of this bike was almost standard apart from a deafening 2 into 1 open megaphone exhaust. No one could have squeezed more out of this bike, eventually running a 16.7, usually in a spectacular fashion. Fang 2 as it was known became a favourite with the small sprinting audience, especially for the near vertical wheelies and eerie howl from the megga.

Blasting (running!) off the line at Smeatharpe.

Hard to believe a 125 could make so much noise.

IN the summer of 1999 after a few visits to Avon Park, 'The Fang' was dusted off and I built up a serviceable engine from spares. Peter Hewitt had kindly invited us to run at 'The Party at The Park' junior drag car demo at Avon Park. Dominic had almost doubled in size to 6ft, so we didn't expect much in the way of performance. The fact that I fitted the wrong tuned exhaust didn't help! However an 1/8 run in the very low 16's at 46mph was enough, Dominic would return in 2001 with a new 'Fang'.

As we were running a Honda CB500T on the road and had lots of spare engines, frames etc. it seemed logical to start with this as a basis. Although a bit small I didn't fancy Dominic starting out on some ripsnorting monster, besides we couldn't afford anything else. Also in the back of my mind was Mick Hand's amazing 9 second 250cc Honda twin. If we could achieve half of what Mick did I'd be happy. So this is going to be a long term project with a blown nitro burner as the ultimate goal, check out 'The Fang' regularly to see if we make it.