SpeedBump
04-18-2005, 10:27 PM
Well, that title was kinda misleading. The pics ARE the Tigers, but they were taken back in the 90s. I stopped today to talk to the owner and see if I might be able to sneak a few pics of them. He couldn't leave his shop, and so this is the best I could get. They let me look through an old photo album and take a couple pics with me to scan in. They are going to REALLY attempt to dip out the stuff this weekend for me. I guess showing up with some cash and pleading my case just may have worked. We'll see. Anyway, here are a couple shots of the Tigers in action. The one track they raced at was huge and they were clocked at OVER 100MPH on this machine. He was runnin 21" Hoosiers with the tallest gearing he could get and STILL couldn't pass some guys(higher gears & it would have run much faster). Crazy for sure. On the smaller tracks, where his gearing would work right, he said this 500 COULD NOT be beat. Took many 1st with it. They only quit racing it when it became evident that the costs were going to be too high to maintain the engines. (Their supply of spare parts ran out and had to go out of house to buy) He reluctantly retired the Tigers and switched over to a KTM for a while, then lastly Honda 250Rs. He even put the big Rotax into a 250R frame and dominated with it for a few years. Anyway, these are the actual Tigers I will be getting soon.....I hope! If you look real close on the one picture, you can still see the "Tiger" sticker on the stock tank peekin out the bottom near his leg. They busted up the 500 fenders and started using the 200/250 ones later on. Not a bad looking conversion actually.