Drag racing motorbike6/17/2023 ![]() One instrument recorded the distance covered every tenth of a second, while a second instrument recorded the acceleration in G-forces, utilizing a weighted pencil pushing against a spring that plotted a graph on a scrolling piece of paper. Waye, an electronics boffin, equipped his dragster with recording equipment, so data could be analyzed from each test run an unheard-of practice at the time. ![]() The cylinders were sleeved down to give a total engine capacity of 980cc, using widely available (at 10p each) 350cc Royal Enfield WD side-valve pistons! To produce real power, the VW motor would need to be supercharged, and a four-cylinder engine would deliver smooth power to the rear wheel. The VW flat-four was a controversial engine choice designed for long life at lower power, the air-cooled car engine was not an obvious choice for sprinting. Once this was overcome, Waye was convinced of his idea, and a new machine was built. Initial tests on a disused airfield, with Howard German at the helm, revealed that riding the prototype had a psychological component, as a rider needs to lift his/her feet off the ground so the machine can take off. The seat was mounted behind the rear wheel and hub-centre steering was incorporated to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible. He extended the frame using scrap water pipe to create a ‘rail’ frame with a long wheelbase. To test his theory in 1961, Waye modified an old 16H Norton with a sidevalve 500cc motor – hardly an inspiring start for a dragster – and removed the steering head. This thinking mirrored the American ‘slingshot’ four-wheeled dragsters of the period, which placed the driver behind the rear axle, and the engine just ahead. The majority of weight on a motorcycle is comprised of the rider, engine and gearbox, so Waye decided the simplest solution was to move the rider fully to the rear a machine, behind the rear wheel, as moving the engine and gearbox behind the wheel was more complicated. In order to achieve this 10 to 12% slip, Waye designed a chassis that moved as much weight towards the back wheel as possible. The small degree of slip stretches each particle of rubber to the limit before it disengages from the road.” 3, 1964):“Waye maintains that you get the best traction, hence acceleration, not when the wheel is spinning freely and not when it isn’t slipping at all – but when there is, say, 10 or 12% slip… This, he says makes the best possible use of the so called rack and pinion effect as the wheel’s rubber is forced into the road surface irregularities. Too much wheelspin wastes power, but a little spin can be helpful as Waye discussed in The Motor Cycle (Sep. ![]() Waye focussed on the first 100 yards of a sprint as the most important, as ‘blown’ twins have issues with wheelspin. ![]() The Drag Waye in its current incarnation, with a sideways, supercharged Vollkswagen motor and covered drag slick out back In the early 1960s, Clive Waye, a systems engineer with Hawker Siddeley Dynamics, approached the sport of sprinting (‘drag racing’ in the USA) in a scientific manner, in order to compete with the dominant supercharged Vincent-based machines of the era. I wanted to find out more, but it wasn’t until the next year’s George Brown Sprint that I spent time with Drag Waye and had a chance to talk to the current campaigners of this historical oddity. There I discovered my ‘long bike’, called Drag Waye, the oddball machine with the rider right out back. The next day I searched Keith Lee’s excellent ‘ Drag Bike Racing in Britain’ to research John Hobbs and his incredible Hobbit machines. “Very strange…does that even work?” I wondered, before spending most of the day sketching ‘The Hobbit’, and the long machine being mentally pushed aside. The sprinter had a curious build, consisting of an air-cooled car engine set sideways, with the rider’s seat behind the rear wheel. When I visited the 2016 George Brown Memorial Sprint, a rather ‘rangy’ sprint machine was being pushed into the back of a van that wasn’t long enough for it.
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