The Fairchild (USA)

Specifications.
Bore: 88
Stroke: 81.7
Ignition: Magneto
Mercedes type fuel injection
Pushrod Overhead Two valve
Designer: Jerry Fairchild, Pasadena, USA

Mike Heath visited this page and adds:

Hello Chris,
It seems every time I thumb through your workshop it's like the tapes go up and my mind starts racing. I was looking at your Fairchild picture and if you noticed the bike still has a two speed transmission. A lot of the bikes came over here (US) with them, mine had one until 83, everyone would pull the low gear cluster out to make it easier to find a neutral. Jerry Fairchild would leave them in Dubb Ferrell's bike, He always ran high but after a race you could here Dubb shift into first to slow down exited the track.

This is a pretty rare picture* of the Fairchild, before they aliened our rules with the F.I.M. we could run 22" and 4.50x19 rear tires. Dubb was one of the best 4.50 riders there was, in fact the when we had team racing in 1976, Digger Helm, the promoter of the Bakersfield track, made sure he had Dubb and the rest of best 4.50 riders on his Bakersfield Bandits team.

The 4.50 Carlisle was a class "C" dirt track tire that worked well on hard slick blue groove tracks, and Digger made sure his track was the hardest, slickest blue grove track in the series. It worked, they were only defeated once on their home track and won the team series. This picture of the Fairchild was probably taken at Costa Mesa or Irwendale.

Another addition to this page was also sent in by Mike who informs me :
I was at the Dan Ruite Flattrack Museum Open House and came across this Fairchild/Excelsior JAP so I took a picture to share with you. The bike was donated by the late F.R. Miller here in central California. I was good friends with both Jerry Fairchild and F.R. Miller so the bike brought back a lot of good memories.

Many Thanks, Mike, for the interesting additional Information.

---