Featured Sprint New Beginning For My 96 Sprint Without Me

Transformation continued on Saturday morning when a former coworker stopped by my garage. My profession for the past 20 years has been as a Project Manager for a General Contracting Corporation doing mid to large size commercial construction projects. Mark Rave has been my favorite Construction Site Superintendent to work with as we make a great team. I run the administrate side; Dealing with Owners, Architects, Engineers, Consultants, Contracted Subcontractors and Material Suppliers. Mark runs field operations day to day; including overseeing all prime and trade contractors working at the sites. We just completed a 8 million dollar school expansion were we added onto an existing elementary by adding middle school and high school areas approximately 80,000 sf added. We were currently starting a new 92,000 sf 14 million dollar Elementary School located right in our backyard. My competitive bidding on the job won us the contract and I was still able to project a good profit margin for the company. Made the Bosses day on this one. Project site is only 3 miles from our office/shop in Harrisburg,SD.

Onto the transformation:
Having trouble uploading photos so I am going to try and do a Part II to this Thread.
Thread Title will be: New Beginning for My 96 Sprint Without Me
With the old customized fairing,wind screen, complete rear tail bodywork section and seat all we had to do was install the brand new parts I received back in 1997-98 when I laid her down on the left side in the street for about 50-60 feet. I had full coverage insurance so if it was nicked, scratched ground down, bend, broken, written off it got replaced. Mostly minor scrapes and things ground down a little. Fairing took the worst of it as the seams separated so added screws and fasteners to fix that, Left fin around opening was cracked and ground pretty good. Creative fiberglass patching and some specialty bondo work by myself and the side was reshaped to original profile. Paint on the lower part of the fairing is a metallic gunmetal dark gray with gold pin stripe separation. I thought it turned out extremely well and it really personalized this bike to me all aspects. She was known as my Ferrari. I am a big F1 fan and followed Michael Schmucher / Ferrari . Still a huge fan - Oct/Nov I'll be in Austin Texas for GP with my two closest mates - bucket list item.

Looks like it just came off the factory assembly line.
Had to fire her up and run her up to temperature, Of course I planted my butt on that brand new seat that had never been sat on. As I sat there my mind wondered and was telling me, just once around the block, but my common sense kicked in and also my rider intuition that no your upper body is not ready yet. So I sat there warming it up, burping the throttle, listening to the rev's from 2000 RPM's to 9500 RPM's. So sweet the sound I was transfixed in a Triumph dream. I know sounds corny but that is me in a nut shell.
I hope whomever elects to buy this gem from me, and from what I have heard there are already a couple of interested people as my town is only 150,000 population and my bike is well know throughout the community. All the years of riding, rallies, bike nights, charity events, and just cruising endless nights for 20 plus years a lot of people see you, especially when you ride something that is not the norm, a Triumph in the middle on the northern plains of the United States. I was the second person in my town to buy a Triumph when my mechanic got the dealership. His business was A-Tech Cycle and now is Competition Cycle. Doug was a very good pro stock drag bike builder and racer in his prime. He has been my personal mechanic and builder for over 35 years. I think he loves this bike as much as I do.
Will do a final cleanup and wax her up good as I will be giving Doug my bike bio and pics so he can put it on his business Facebook site for people to bid on. He asked me to do it because he is a great friend and has had just as much hands on with this bike since it was removed from the crate in his shop back in 1996-1997 as I have.

It's not over yet.......more to come, as I am really enjoying sharing my feelings and my appreciation of a life long love affair with Motorcycle Racing, Riding, Sport Touring and just plain kicking it the twisty's.
Thanks to all of you that have taken the time to read my rumblings and over indulgence in my passion.
Also thank you for your kind, caring and inspirational thoughts, prayers and well wishes.
This is truly a caring community of Triumph Riders that do bound over all borders, oceans and continents.

Long live Triumph Motorcycles

 

Well the day has finally come, I did swear a long time that I was going to be buried with this bike but I have decided to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in Lake Pactola Reservoir at Veteran's Point in the great Black Hills of South Dakota. I will be joining my wife again as this is where her ashes are also scattered by me in the summer of 2005. My first wife Cindi (Thomas) Schultz was diagnosed with Stage Four Breast Cancer at 32 years old and I was 40. Needless to say but after a long and painful 5 years of treatments and everything under the sun she passed away at 37 years old. She was Home Hospice Cared for the last eight months with the help of her mother during the day and myself at nights we made her as comfortable as possible. Her three children from two different prior marriages had it the roughest. Joshua was 16, Jordan was 11, and Makayla was just 7. All three have grown into fine outstanding young adults and I am so proud of them and I am so happy that we shared 7-8 really good years together. You see I do not have any children of my own but my step children are still close to my heart even today after all they have had to endure.

Never thought i be doing this but all good things must come to an end.

No shit hands down this has been the best motorcycle I have ever bought, rode and traveled on, bar none. Special thanks to the Hinckley's design & factory assembly crew of 1995-1996.

 

Finally got down to the real business today. Purchased my F1 Experience package for the Formula One Race taking place at The Circuit of the Americas on October 30 thru November 2, 2019. Had my best buds over and made the official announcement to them and presented the package deal we are attending under. We all spent several hours talking, celebrating, and just having a good time looking back and looking forward. I overdid it again and was struggling at the end, to much excitement and talking. I am finally winding down now but I will never forget the looks on their faces and true brotherly love I felt and experience with my bros as I laid the whole buck list thing out to them.

We will be there, tickets, hotel, airfare all completed and now it's time to work on myself and build strength and stamina so I can get there with them. I know I have a long way to come but I'll do it. Final resting point for my ashes, Veterans Point, Lake Pactola Reservoir in the great Black Hills of South Dakota. My first wife's ashes are scattered in the water over my left shoulder back in 2006 after her passing in December of 2004. I rode my wife's Suzuki 800 Intruder to the place where her ashes were scattered by me. This place is very special and I will be very happy to join her when my time comes to an end.
My One True Love!!!!!

 

Just a quick note on the status of my Sprint and my working toward being able to ride again even if it's only a few miles. It will mean the world to me to ride her one more time before she goes to someone else as this bike has been part of a huge part of my life.
Also I really want to get on my 06 BMW K1200S that I've only been riding for about 3,000 miles late last summer as I bought it in July two weeks before the Triumph Sprint and I went to the Black Hills of South Dakota for her final rides on our favorite mountain and canyon roads.
Did the final cleaning and waxing of all the new and old bodywork fairing, panels, etc. Just have to clean Stainless can sleeves, tires, rims, and few motor areas of the grime.

Looking Good...............I think


Also today received my Inogen One G3 Portable Oxygen Generator System. Total Weight of unit 4.7 lbs. with two rechargeable 5 hr batteries, one 10 hr rechargeable, carry case, ac and dc power supplies for charging. This unit will fit in my BMW saddle bag, run hose supply hose up my back and into my helmet to my hose anualar. Also BMW has plug socket so I can charge batteries while riding down the road. We are in business for riding again, I'll still need to work on getting some strength back in my upper body and lower legs as off bike maneuvering is very difficult but while on the seat I feel good. Medications are also going to come into play as over half of what I take causes dizziness, drowsiness, light headed, unstableness, do not operation machinery, etc. I'll get through it all though because I love to ride and l live to ride, it's a huge part of who I am.
This is what I am looking forward to enjoying to the end, it's not a Triumph but is a type of bike I've admired for many, many, many years. To bad it took me so long to find one that I liked, was priced right, and fits me like the Sprint. It has very nice risers on the hand bar position and raised foot pegs.
You see I am only 5'-6" tall and only weigh about 125lbs, runt of the litter so to speak.
Proud Triumph and now BMW Owner
Ride on Everyone..........Will continue next week, maybe have some riding pics.......can only hope and pray now.

 

Short update: Got together with a few friends on Saturday night for a grill out and the watching of the pay-per-view Knoxville Nationals from Knoxville, Iowa.
Largest World of outlaws Sprint Car Race. $150,000 dollars to win.
Back in the early 90's I was part of a pit crew that ran 410 c.i.and 360 c.i. Sprint Cars on our local dirt track in the area. We raced three nights a week for thee years at three different tracks. Rock Rapids, Iowa (3/8 mile dirt), Hartford Speedway, Hartford, SD (3/8 mile dirt) and Husets Speedway, Brandon, SD (3/8 mile high bank dirt) our home track. In 1993 we took our 410 c.i. outlaw sprint car to the Knoxville Nationals and out of 187 cars qualified in the top 75.
During our qualifying night we accrued enough points to start on the first row of the "D" on the last night "The Big Show". Feature night had A - H features and for a very new team as we were this was an amazing showing.To transfer to the next feature up you needed to place in the top four, unfortunately we were fifth but still a damn good result for the four nights of hard midwestern dirt racing against the best World of Outlaws drivers in the country. Steve Kinser, mark Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Bobby Jones, Doug Wolfgang, Brian Schnee, Danny "The Dude" Lasoski,Joe Gaerte to name a few.
This last Saturday nights "A" feature winner was David Graves driving the Jeff Gordon and Jason Johnson Family's "Axalta Sprint Car". You may may recognize the first named car owner, one hell of a race driver in his own right.
Jeff Gordon starting racing dirt in 1/4 midgets, midgets, silver crown and sprint cars before he went to Nascar and won multiple championships.

David Graves wins the 2019 Knoxville Nationals and pockets a cool $150,000 thousand dollars (US):

The watch party crew:
Sprint is all cleaned up, covered up and awaiting it's new owner to come and give me their offer on an amazing piece of English Motorcycle Engineering and Design.
Ride on Brothers and Sisters, I am going to soon!!!!!!!!!!!!