Pegram spins the Aprilia-powered dirt tracker by Nick Cummings. image by rick matheny

Mile dirt track racing is about as close to a spec-series as one can get. The Hondas are all but gone, the new Suzukis have yet to show complete competitiveness and a decent Yamaha hasn't shown its face on a Mile in years, make that decades. To be in the game on a Mile dirt track, you've got one choice for riding iron: the venerable Harley-Davidson XR750.

Unless you're Larry Pegram.

Faced with a weekend off from the asphalt circus, Pegram traveled this past weekend to DuQuoin Illinois' one-mile oval, home of one of the most famous trotter horse races and also home to the final round of the Grand National series. He wasn't going to ride the typical Harley XR750 though, he was riding an Aprilia Mille built and owned my Mike and David Lloyd, like Pegram, from Ohio.

Pegram rode the machine this spring at the Springfield mile and was faced with an ill-handling, underdeveloped bucking bronc with lots of power but a chassis that wanted to explode out from under the rider. Georgia racing veteran Greg Tysor took a stab at the same bike a month ago at the fall running of Springfield and jokingly commented, "With a new frame and a new engine, that thing will be great." Tysor constructively suggested some changes to the chassis, including a different shock specification, and the Lloyds hired Traxxion Dynamics to build a shock more suitable to the Aprilia. They also changed the front end geometry to put more weight over the front tire.

The changes were a huge step forward. Pegram was able to start getting comfortable with the powerful Italian twin.

"We were trying to get more weight on the front end, and we moved the front end in and got it better, but now the thing didn't want to hook up," he explained. "At least it's a rideable motorcycle now, before it was kind of unrideable."

After dialing in a few minor changes during practice, Pegram went out to qualify. A fourth in his scratch heat seemed promising. In his heat race, Larry rode to seventh, forcing him to qualify through a semi, which he went out and won. It was the first time anyone had ever put an Aprilia in a GNC main event.

"Those guys worked really hard on it, so it was cool to be able to do it," Pegram said. He finished twelfth in the 25-lap feature, moving up through lots of attrition, but winning out in a battle with young Nick Cummings.

Larry commented that it is still fun to ride dirt track, and that he'd be happy to saddle up again on the Mille-based tracker next year. He also stressed how difficult it really is to make one of these main events against the best power-sliders in the world.

"I'd love to ride it in 2005, depending on what my deal is for next year with roadrace stuff. I'd like to have the opportunity to do it, because we've got the thing now where we could put it in the mains, and if we keep going, maybe we could actually win some mains, especially on the miles. It definitely shows that it has enough power, we're just still struggling on the handling end of it."

"Getting in one of those main events is probably the hardest thing you can do as far as the level of competition. I think in the semi I was in, J.R. Schnabel and (Bryan) Bigelow were third and fourth and didn't even make the main, and Schanbel's won three races this year. Every time you go out there, there's eighteen spots, but there's usually thirty or forty guys that are capable of getting in the race, no problem."