A Date With A Triumph Thruxton

Photography by Etech Photo and CN

I’m not sure this is what the Triumph designers had in mind when they penned the Thruxton. I think that, even with Triumph’s stellar racing history, the Thruxton would be better served as a steed of pure café racer, rather than real, actual racer. Bombing down into the off-camber, very downhill turn five, the front-end of this most British of machines has decided to go for a plow, and is taking me along for the ride. The 18-inch front wheel with its thin rubber hoop has thrown the bars full lock. A lowside is imminent, as is pain and embarrassment, yet by the grace of the great spaghetti monster, the wrong is somehow righted through no degree of skill and I’m still in the race, still in the lead.

Won’t be doing that again, I tell myself.

Hammering the brakes on a Thruxton isn’t remotely like on a superbike or supersport. For starters, there’s not a lot of braking power. What power there is is modulated via a heavy lever pull and an even heavier clutch, because using the engine to slow you down is as much a part of the game as the tiny single rotor you put your nuts on the line with. The brake feeling is almost wooden, and going into the stupid final hairpin at Sonoma, north of Oakland in the only green part of California I’ve ever seen, is a game of trust and luck. Get it right and I tip-toe through the final corner, not having gained any time but not losing any either. Get it wrong, and I’ve got to explain to the yellow Brit’s owner, Walt Bolton, that he needs new cases.

Getting the most out of a Thruxton is a bit of a game. Like any bike it has its intricacies that define its personality, make it unique. For example, the tank is tiny and nearly impossible to clench with your knees. That means braking stability is compromised because it’s harder to lock yourself in place without sending all the steering forces through your arms and effectively making the forks an extra three feet long. The gearbox doesn’t like clutchless upshifts and damn near throws you at the wall with the scorn of a British boarding school teacher if you try clutchless downshifts. The suspension feels about equal to the rest of the bike in that it’s adequate without being overly satisfactory, yet I’m still enjoying myself while I wring every last drop of horsepower out of the 865cc parallel-twin that sounds like a rhino farting for 15 minutes straight.

The man I have to thank for this experience, Alabama’s own Walt Bolton, has made more than a hobby out of the Thruxton. Walt’s poison is pure British – he owns five racing Thruxtons and one as his daily ride – so to say he’s got a thing for the old-school Brit twin would be somewhat of an understatement.

Walt sponsors the Trans Atlantic Thruxton Cup and can at times provide up to half the bikes on the grid for the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) events, and he quietly tells me the bike I’m racing on has taken wins in the hands of Doug Polen, Jason DiSalvo and my colleague, Zack Courts from Motorcyclist Magazine. So, no pressure then.

The Thruxton Cup is just one part of what makes up the AHRMA series. But it’s not just classics on show. Everything from a tiger-painted Ducati Panigale to Courts’ Yamaha FZ-07, 10-year-old TZ250s and 90s superbikes were on the grid, and it’s something AHRMA Race Director Cindy Cowell wants people to know about.

“There’s a bit of a misconception that AHRMA is only for old bikes,” she tells me. “We don’t have any class for the latest testosterone-fuelled kid on a GSX-R, but there’s so many classes that cater to modern bikes that not many know about. Like your race, (talking about the Sound of Thunder 3 – SoT3 – category) there’s RC390 KTMs, Ducatis, even electric bikes on the grid. The AHRMA pits are some of the most diverse you’ll see”.

A bit like my date with the Super Hooligans a few weeks ago, it took me more than a reasonable amount of time to get up to speed on the Thruxton. Corner speed is king on this machine because there’s not really any power to push you from one corner to the next, and trusting those tires while you’re playing with big lean angles takes a bit of time in itself.

Thursday’s races were nothing to write home about. I screwed up on my grid positioning and for the opening encounter was put on the second wave of riders, meaning all my competition was way up the road and I had no chance of catching them. I still managed a third in class (SoT3) around the sweeping hills of a circuit that’s easily one of my favorites on U.S. soil, so I figured I was good for the Thruxton Cup against the number one, Mike Blakenship.

A piss-poor start left me way back in the pack, but Blankenship was still within sight by the end of the second lap. By lap three I’d caught him, passed him under brakes at the treacherous turn five and thought I had him sorted. Two laps had gone by, I’d dipped into the 2:00.7sec range, and then, boooommmm! Blankenship came flying past me on the straight like he had an extra 30 horsepower. Didn’t even use the draft and was two lengths in front by the time we passed the stripe! Then, he simply cleared off. To be honest, I was a little stunned. I thought I had him beat, then blitzed by and rubbed my nose in it.

This wouldn’t stand. Oh no…

Friday dawned and with it a little extra agro in the system. No way was I going to let him beat me by six seconds again, and just when I was figuring out a game plan in practice, I see the infamous fiberglass marks, followed by a bike and a living human in obvious pain. It was Walt, half under the bike and winded to high hell with thoughts of broken ribs. He’d lost the front at the penultimate corner on cold tires and bit it hard.

As Walt climbed into the meat wagon to head to hospital, he mentioned, “make sure you beat Mike!” So, again, no pressure, Rennie.

The Sound of Thunder 3 race, event three, was going great. I’d hit the lead and was clearing off into the distance when, coming to my hated final corner, the gearshift bolt sheared off and I was stuck in third gear. At least it happened right at pit entry, so I blasted up pit road, swore in my helmet, parked the yellow beast and immediately started searching for a replacement shift rod. The only one I found that would work for the rearset was on Walt’s stricken bike, so, figuring he wouldn’t be needing it, I ripped it off and near hammered it on mine and got to the grid just in time for race five, the Thruxton Cup.

With Mike on the far left, me on the far right and no one in between thanks to Walt’s crash and a free grid spot, we gave each other a good luck nod and waited for the flag. Before I knew it we were at turn one side by side, but I managed to squeeze Mike out and grab the lead for turn two. For the next few laps I was waiting for the black rocket to jet by me, but it never came. By lap six of eight I allowed myself a glance behind, and there was no one in sight. Phew. I’d dipped into the 1:57s for three laps and managed to break Mike, and it was a nice feeling seeing the checkered flag first for the first time in a number of years on a road race track.

I ended with 3-2-DNF-1 results for the two days racing on a bike I was finally beginning to feel at home on. It’s funny how, no matter what bike it is, as long as you don’t dent your confidence by throwing yourself down the road, you can eventually get the hang of it.

Thanks to Walt Bolton, Cindy Cowell, and Alpinestars USA’s Heath Cofran for making this feature happen.