Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126028
th e leaders. In th e opening laps R ex . Beauchamp was do ing th e Harley b o o gie whe n Moreh ead fa ctory app eared alongside and refused to be . shak en off. Beau champ co m m ented to the effect th at Morehead was the last ride r he had ex pecte d to see. TOLEDO: Mor eh ead wo n his semi to make th e Nat ional. A broken wire to th e battery sto p pe d what co uld have been th e best race of th e ye ar fo r Mor ehead ' and Ken nedy. St eve, by midway po int was in fourth and moving. -, ' OPINION: Kennedy bu ilds a rocket that squ eezes eve ry last oun ce of power from th e engine. A s wha t amounts to a privateer effo rt, it put up a damn good show w ith silly things rath er th an engine pro blem s halting it m ost of the time. " So Kennedy's been doin g this fo r 20 year s. Is he the engineer th at the myst ery ad finall y turned up? It's time to ta ke the bull by th e horns. Long Dis tance Information y iel ds a "Stone and his patience was wearing thin . (T he pent-up deman d for a ne w Am erican enthusiast 's mo t orcycle must be tremendous. ] Still , he said, " If y o u're in the area , co m e on over and I'll show you what we've got so far." The GAM a live and we ll in Ely ria El yria, Ohio is alm o st to o far away to be ca lle d a suburb o f Cleveland, yet it is a part of a ci ty /resid e n tia l/in du st ri al / scattered-agriculture co m p lex that stretches along the southern sho re o f Lake Ohio . Talking industrially, this IS a rich ripe crescent dotted with small shops in which much of the auto industry 's original toolmak ing and patternmaking is done. It's no accid en t that Kennedy's dream (" I've been wan ting to do this for 10 years. " ) be gan to ta ke sh ape as th e car business sagged. (The place is not far from Penton head quarters in Lorain, just up th e road. John Penton an d Bill Kennedy kn ow each other pretty well.) cou n t~rsh aft reside on the right side of the en gine. It will h ave an in -unit 5-speed gearbo x. The e ngine is inte n de d for the street bik e m arke t and wil l also be raced on th e AMA Gr and Natio nal ci rcu it. Dic k Mann has bee n brought in o n that project and expects t o design a dirt trac k frame as soon as Kennedy can ge t hi m a n en gin e o r an engine pattern . The drawings fo r the street frame were not done a t t he time of m y visit; but they are done n ow and Kennedy is stoked. In fact. ceverybody connected with the project seems stoked with e n t h us iasm - even the non-bike people. On e reason has been Kenndy's ap p ro ac h to de sign and d evelopment , co m par ed with the a uto mo t ive types who are his pat ternmakers" normal so urces o f busin ess . Whil e th e car people would b ring in 'a ro ugh sketch and then haggle all d a y as to what th ey want, Kennedy would b ring in a fin ish ed wo rk in g talk goes on. He in tends to keep as much of the bike as possible in domestic' sources. Any product developed over a period o f mon ths stret ching into years aims at a moving market t arget. Kennedy's design/cost aims poin t directly at the enthusiast as he t icks them off for us : ' ''The ca ses will b e o ne inch wider than a Harley dirt tr acker ... the engine will 130 pounds less w eigh car b u re to rs ... we want to get 85 horsepower out of the 750 .. . It 's going to have the best power-to-weight ratio in the business, 365 po u nd s street legal ... it can 't co st more than 52495 re tail, and we want to give a dealer so m e t h ing on his investment. too . . . I look to do 2000 u nits the first year, 50 00 th e follo wing year . .. at 50,000 units annual ly we co uld employ 1500 •pe ople hand ling will be a main go al st yling - slim a nd trim - a real thoroughbred. " • At the former Church. of the Open Door..... Street Lands Co." in Spencer. I dial the number and get a nice lady on the line who says Mr. Stonestreet and Mr. Kennedy are partners and y es, .th ey are goi ng to build motorcycles. They had found their engineer, but it was not Kennedy: it was Frederick J o h n Wickes, formerly of Triumph in England, formerly employed at th e Meriden pl ant. Mr. Wickes is heavily into the des ign o f an engine for the partners, has been in th is country wor kin g on it, but can ' t stay due to visa problems. Mr. Kennedy is doing th e ac tual work on th e d esign a t h is shop in Elyria, Ohio . Why not cal l him, as Mr. S tonestreet is not ava ilable rig ht now? Bill Kennedy at fir st was none too hap py I'd found h im . - He 's bee n averagi ng 15·20 phone ca lls a day , j ust o n the rumo~s o f hi s project 's ex istence ; Bill Kennedy, desk and office o verflowing with papers an d pa rts .. . 1 :;:,-...,.......,......,..,..,..,.,...- ..,--,,..,..., Kennedy 's shop used to be the lo cal Church of the Open Do or, a large double building wh ich Kennedy bought as-is when the church fo lded up. One. half is Kennedy's well-stocked T ri u m p h/Yam aha dealership; while the other hal f (t he peak-roofed, gabled former sanctuary) houses his racing an d develop me nt department. It was here in a t in y panelled office jammed with a desk and two dr afting t ables , th at I fo u nd Bill Kennedy and draft sm an John Tra ylor pouring over th eir latest eff orts: the assem bly drawing s o f the 75 0 t win it sel f, flan ked b y ro ug h cas t ings -a nd fo rg ing s of p arts of the e ng ine. You loo k at the to p e nd of Kennedy 's e ngine: a nd it's n o secret that what he's been d oing wi th hi s dirt tracke rs has heavily in fluen ced what he 's doing now. In fact , it's safe: to say th at the he ad is a "productionized " versio n o f what he 's been using t o sh a ke th e Harley domin ati on o f Ohio half miles. It still has the Triumph hallmark , two ca ms set high in the b lo ck at the cylin d er base , Triumph-st yle follower blocks and pushrods to th e overhead valves. From t he re, the d esign ta kes off in its own d irection. The cases will be horizontall y split, rather th an vertically , allo wi ng th e use of a fully-su p po rted . 3 6 0 degree cra n kshaft wi th a center main bearin g. Cylin ders ar e alloy with iro n liners . In a r eversal - o r T riu m p h p ra ctice, th e Kennedy engin e use s gear primary drive a nd chain drive to the cams. The rear (in take) ca m is driven not from th e cran ksh af t but from the clutch carrier (whic h is gear ed to the crank, thus is always in positively-located rotation) . The rear cam drives a "Gerotor" type rotary two-stage oil pump ; and a second cha in (w hic h appears as th o ugh it mi ght be equal in length a n d sh are a co m mo n part number with the first ) drives the forward (exh aust ) ca m. T he e ngi ne has primary kick-start a nd designed-in provisions for a n electric starter. Because it's been de signed from scrat ch for left . sh ift; primary drive and drawing . of the part and say " This is wh at it 's got to be. " Makes- it much easier on both parties to define the kind o f p attern, the amount of ex tra material to al lo w, the form of a rough casting or forging. The guy who's doing t hei r head and case work at nearb y Pre cision Production Patterns is so sto ked he doesn't want to go home nights. , "W e're buying all of th e tooling," Kenned y told m e. "It w ill belong to us. to tall y. " The " us" is primarily Kennedy a nd O. Van ce Stonest reet in Wes t 'Virgin ia ; and be tween th e two of t hem , th e y eve n tually ex pect to own nearly S I 0 million worth of production tooling . Whe re do th e y ge t that ki nd of m oney ? "Oil and gas is financing th is," accordi ng to Kennedy . Bo th h e an d Stonestr eet have extensive holdin gs in producing oil an d gas wells , plus Stonestree t h as some lan d . They naturall y keep a we ather ey e on th e world price of o il and pray for de con trol. As th e y be gin to phase in fr om design to p ro du c tion, the engines will be asse m bled from bought out co m po ne n ts in Kenned y's sh op, wh ere he 's accu m ula t ed enough expen sive mach in e tooling to al m o st whittle out a proto type eng ine fro m bill et stock , if he had a m in d to. But' for p racti cal reasons , t he ac tual pi ece part production will be jobbed o ut (Bo h n Alumin um w ill d o th e fo rge d alloy rods, for exam p le). T he m o to rcycle itsel f' wi ll be built an d m ated with t he e ngine somewher e near Spe n cer where industrial buildings are "a dime a dozen . We're still dickering fo r th e best deal." With design well alo ng, it 's down to d ickering on many fronts, as Kennedy begin s to lin e up co m po ne n t suppliers. He ex pec ts the first 10,000 units to ha ve bought-out fo rks b efo re he can to o l up to make th em internally . The wheels will be Les te r all o y, using disc brak es at both ends. He 's talked to Autolite, Holley, a nd Lectron for ignition and car b ure tion so far, and the In fact, "Thoroughbred" is the name Kennedy and Stonestreet have finally chosen for their new baby. They're co u nting heavily on the enthusiast market th at was d eveloped by the British bikes and left hanging. For the future, they've got an ei gh t-valve head on the board " when we need more air," a 905cc big tourer (still a twin), and a 380cc m iddleweight, still aim ed at the stre e t market. Asked about a dirt single, Kennedy has a tendency to hedge , rather than answer . Asked a bo ut Craig Ve tter and his am bition to build co mp le te bikes , Kenned y sa ys they've already talked abo ut getting together an d will talk so me m ore. " He 's in teres te d in wo rking with us , and I like him personally. " Iro n icall y , ' Ranto ul lJIin o is and Vetter Fai r ing Compan y is m y nex t stop. • / an d draftsman John Tray lo r la bo r over the fi nal design. 17