When it all began
It all started in October of 2001, when the Yahoo Southern Sportster Riders Club (YSSR) was back at Maxton to show our support for the XL-List race team and our other racing friends. That weekend...Karen Batts rode her stock 883 sportster down the monster mile at a speed of over 104mph! I (Snal) had just purchased a 98 883 a few months earlier, and seeing the huge grin on Karen's face was all it took! Even though I'd never raced anything in my life....I turned to my wife (Jo), and told her "I gotta race this bike!" this started the ball rolling, and within weeks the race team was formed from members of the YSSR. "Stroker" (George Maloney) from Canada, Harry Malphus from SC, Don Thigpen (Neon Don) from Georgia, and Darrin Cronan (Yetavon) AKA "Lunatic" from NC, signed on as tech support and pit crew. Then...a phone conversation between myself and Stroker led to an e-mail note sent to yet another YSSR member...Lee Tindall of SC. Lee is about 7" shorter than me...and 30lbs. lighter...Stroker mentioned that if I got close to breaking a record...then Lee may be able to take the bike beyond the record. I knew that just like me...Lee had never raced before, and I had no idea whether or not Lee would consider piloting a race bike. My e-mail to Lee was answered quickly, with not only a "yes"...but a "HELL YES!" The race team was now formed!
From there, I started getting the bike race ready....V rated tires, steering dampener, number plates, and the required safety wire at critical areas. The race team needed a name...so since the YSSR had nicknamed me "Snal" (skinny-no-ass-Larry)...and Lee doesn't have any more meat on his bones than I do!......Stroker came up with a winner...."SNART" (Skinny-No-Ass-Race-Team!)...and it fit perfectly! Then...at one of our now famous YSSR get togethers, we had a new couple join the club...Bobby and Karen Cooper of NC.....and they brought their daughter Destiny to the track...Destiny and I hit it off from the start!...she stole my heart when she referred to me as "Uncle SNAL".....that was it!...from that moment on the race bike was known as "Destiny", and a derby cover was etched with her hand written signature, and mounted on the bike.
Our goal was simply to run "Destiny" as fast as we could at Maxton the following spring....anything over Karen's 104mph run would be great...but the records were quite a bit higher in the class that we were going to enter. The first race...in March of 2002 was missed due to a cam bushing that was frozen to the #3 cam....we found this while attempting to install a set of Andrews N4 cams. That was repaired with alot of help. Now we were ready for the April race! It seemed like it took forever for April's race date to come....but there we were....about to hit the track for the first time ever! I was nervous...no doubt.....and my first trip down the track was a slow 99mph...but it felt like I was flying!...we were running forward controls and the bike was basically a stock 883. When I returned to the pit....Ray Kimbro of the XL-List race team coached me into applying a more prone race position...moving my feet off the forwards after reaching 5th gear, and removing my left hand from the bars...placing it on the lower left fork tube, and tucking my elbows in. Believe me!...it took alot of coaching!...but my 3rd pass hit 117mph!...and the race bug bit me so hard that I still have a scar! Meanwhile...Lee was taking his turns on "Destiny"....and his first pass was 113mph!...it was too late to turn back for both of us, and the grin on Lee's face was a dead giveaway that he too had been bitten by the race bug! Lee finshed the weekend just as Stroker had expected.....with a top speed of over 119mph! Both of our top speeds would have broken one of the class records of 112mph...but we hadn't entered that class. We didn't know it at the time...but the smiles on our faces would last much longer than the 4 week period before the next race! We had alot of help from fellow racers...and our team pit crew that worked quickly to get us back to the staging area!
The May meet finally came...and we were ready! My best pass for the weekend was a tad over 125mph...enough to take the MPS/PBG 1000cc class record...but it wouldn't hold for long. Lee started out with a run of 125mph...and didn't stop till he blew the old record out of the books with a top speed of 132.723mph! From that moment on...Lee was now known as "Super Lee"! Team SNART had dropped some jaws and opened some eyes, as we were taking 1000cc records with an 883 sportster!
June was yet another great meet for team SNART! We didn't top Lee's famous 132mph run...but "Super Lee" was able to take 2 more APS records at 128.013 and 125.919mph! I entered an open 2000cc class with a 119.677 run to set the record.
September wasn't a record setting meet for team SNART...but we had a blast inching up on, but not taking any records. We learned that the records were icing on the cake...and that it was a blast just to be there with all our friends...and have a ball racing!
October came...and we were ready to experiment with a new airbox designed by "Neon Don"...it worked well!...maybe too well!....we never could feed the engine enough fuel to match the air that Don's airbox had provided. We did go home with 4 more records though! I managed to take 2...and "Super Lee" took 2 more as well. Team SNART had finished the season in 11th place in points out of 46 bikes at Maxton...we had taken 8 records! Team SNART would own 6 records in the 2003 rulebook...as we had taken 2 of those 8 records twice! Not bad for a bunch of friends racing for the first time!
Our first racing season has ended, and our accomplishments have put us on cloud nine! To top it all off....we were published in a newspaper, we made an article in the September 2002 issue of "Thunder Press"magazine, as well as the January 2003 issue of "Iron Works" magazine!
We now look forward to the 2003 season, which will include "Destiny" and 3 other bikes that will race under the Team SNART banner! Rick "Slide" Denham will join our team with his record breaking 1350 class sportster, Harry Malphus will be back for the pits, and as a pilot for his own 1000cc bike that is currently being built in his basement, "Neon" Don will be back as pit crew, and will bring the 4th bike to Team SNART...another 1350 class sportster!
I'd like to thank the following folks for making this the best year of my life!
"Super Lee" Tindall......George "Stroker" Maloney.....Harry "MacGyver" Malphus....."Neon" Don Thigpen.....Darrin "Lunatic" Cronan.....Dave Hedrick.....Dale Amsden....."Right turn" Ray Kimbro......George Crim.....Rick "Slide" Denham..... Mark "Mr Clean" Wolniak...Paul and Karen Batts....Dan Barnes....and the entire YSSR!
Special thanks to my son "Jason" for his patience and expertise in building this website, and for teaching me that "HTML" is NOT short for "hotmail".
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