Indholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2023 i Classic Racer

PEOPLE In 2023 Dave Street celebrates 50 years since he won the Bemsee 500cc championship – the premier club championship of the time. Dave rode an immaculate Matchless G50 Seeley and his pride in machine presentation came from motorcycle dealer and race entrant Tom Kirby, who at one time had the riding elite under his wing – including world champions Mike Hailwood and Bill Ivy. Dave Street would end up buying Kirby’s shop, racing at club and international level, becoming a race school instructor, an advertising rep for Motor Cycle News, a London fireman, setting up the biggest bike breakers in Essex, and then throwing it all up to become a TV and film extra. It’s fair to say that Dave Street has lived a full and colourful life. He…

METAL GIUSEPPE PATTONI WAS THE CHIEF MECHANIC FOR FB MONDIAL WHEN THE COMPANY QUIT GP RACING AT THE END OF 1957. HE TEAMED UP WITH LINO TONTI TO DESIGN RACE BIKES. TONTI SOON LEFT BUT PATTONI DEVELOPED THE 500 INTO A QUITE SUCCESSFUL PRIVATEER RACER BEFORE TURNING TO TWO-STROKES IN 1975. HIS 115-DEGREE V4 WAS THE FIRST SINGLE CRANKSHAFT V4 TO APPEAR IN THE 500CC CLASS. THE CYLINDER ANGLE WAS REDUCED TO 90-DEGREES IN 1990, THEN FINALLY 70-DEGREES IN 1994.…

EVENTS The 2022 CRMC annual awards and dinner/dance took place at the club’s usual venue, the Mercure Daventry Court Hotel, and despite the cost of living squeeze more than 230 members and guests booked their seats to enjoy the festivities and see the presentation of an impressive array of silverware. There were several strong contenders for the CRMC Classic Racer of the Year but as the season developed it had become apparent to many observers that one man was enjoying an outstanding campaign on the JC Racing G50 and 7R. Yes, it was Lancashire’s Mark Cronshaw who took home the prestigious award after winning all three of the championships that he contested – the CRMC Classic 350 and 500 plus the ACU Classic 500. As many readers will know, Mark’s…

Is it really 20 years since we lost the great man? When we mark occasions like this, we often think ‘what if?’ Imagine the last 20 years of stories, appearances, parade laps and maybe even competitive outings, such as the classic races he enjoyed towards the end of his life. Barry Sheene was a one-off. In many ways he set the standard, not just for the modern motorcycle racer but also for sportsmen and women in general. Barry’s talents weren’t restricted to the race-track. He was an intelligent all-rounder, who looked outside of his sport for inspiration to make motorcycle racing both more professional and safer. As a result, his influence and popularity went further than that of just a simple motorcycle racer. His vision helped pave the way for…

PEOPLE Even after he started to hit the headlines, the late great Bill Ivy would, when commitments allowed, go down to Brands Hatch to spectate even at club-level race meetings, just for the enjoyment of the race atmosphere, and simply ‘being there.’ In his super 1972 biography of Ivy, ‘No Time to Lose’, Alan Peck relates the story of one such afternoon in 1966, where Ivy: “…spotted a young lad on a battered old bike running rings around other riders with far more expensive up-to-date machinery. He wasn’t winning, but he caught Bill’s eye with his obvious style and natural ability, so much so that Bill contacted ‘Uncle Tom’ and a trial was arranged for the promising youngster. The result was encouraging and the lad was given a regular place…

IN DETAIL: Every road race fan has a favourite rider and we often compare riders from different eras: “Would rider X from 10+ years ago be able be able to beat today’s rider Y?” In the mid to late Sixties my two most favourite riders were Bill Ivy and Mike Hailwood. When Honda withdrew from GP racing at the end of 1967, Hailwood was given an RC174 297cc Honda six and the RC181N 500cc Honda four for non-world championship events. Hailwood raced various bikes off and on for the next two years before converting to F1 and F2 car racing, driving for the Surtees and McLaren teams. In 1974 he was forced to retire after badly breaking his right leg at the German F1 GP. Fast forward to 1977 and…

FEATURE After being founded in 1976, Honda Britain Racing had grown to become one of the biggest outfits in almost all areas of motorcycle sport as the 1980s dawned. As part of Honda’s European Championship Endurance winning team (as partner with Honda France), TT Formula 1 world champion and serial winner in various British championship classes, the team was attracting some serious rider talent and by the early part of that decade it had signed up riders like Ron Haslam, Mick Grant, Wayne Gardner and Joey Dunlop. Gerald Davison, the man who founded the Honda Britain team, was personally responsible for signing them all. He explains his very deliberate reasoning for signing such big names. He recalls: “From 1976 onwards, I was in the enviable position of being able to…

PEOPLE For four decades from 1958 until he passed away in 1999, aged 72, Grand Prix race mechanic Giuseppe Pattoni dedicated his life to constructing the distinctive green Paton road racers. ‘Peppino’, or ‘Pep’ as he was known, would often work long hours into the night in his small workshop in Milan to craft them practically single-handedly for a select roster of customers, as well as his own race team – latterly with the help of his son, Roberto. During a long and eventful life Pattoni earned the respect and admiration of cognoscenti around the globe as a man filled with a lasting passion for bike racing – one who at the cost of untold sacrifice and against all odds, made an improbable dream come true. The dream: competing in…

Two decades ago, Neil Hodgson became the UK’s second World Superbike Champion. A former schoolboy moto-crosser, Neil never described himself as ‘a natural’ on two wheels, but nevertheless by the time he was 13 he was winning everything there was to win, until a big accident saw him break his tibia and fibula aged just 14. Dad Mark got Neil on a Yamaha TZR125 and he started tarmac racing – on the proviso he didn’t ride on the road. He soon made an impression and – aged 18 – became the British 125cc champion on a Honda RS125. Under the guidance of Roger Burnett, Neil went into GP racing and back then was the youngest rider on the grid. He would take a best finish in 1993 of 10th at…

For most of the American marque's 119 years in existence, calling any Harley-Davidson a road racer has seemed pretty much a contradiction in terms. Sure, the Motor Company’s Italian Aermacchi subsidiary won a quartet of 250/350cc GP World titles in the mid-1970s courtesy of Walter Villa, but the same kind of badge-engineering today would have Charles Leclerc racing a Fiat in Formula 1, not a Ferrari, and Aleix Espargarò would be challenging for the MotoGP World title on a Piaggio, not an Aprilia. Until the arrival of the VR1000 Superbike in the 1990s, the involvement of Harley's Milwaukee home base in road-racing was pretty desultory. Of course, there was a reason for this: they didn't need to. Till then, Harley only did what they called 'pavement racing' whenever they had…

PEOPLE I’m buying breakfast for Nigel Bosworth – known to all as ‘Boz’ in the paddock – where he spent decades as a racer, test rider and team manager. He’s chosen the location (let’s just say it’s not the cheapest) but as I’m paying the bill, I want to start at the beginning. Ah, but the best laid plans and all that. Boz dives in near the end, and as I want to dip my sausage in my egg, I just hit record and let him start where he wants to: riding for ‘King’ Kenny Roberts, helping to develop the Modenas (later Proton) KR3, a three-cylinder Grand Prix machine with which the team would take on the mainly Japanese V4 500cc machines. Over to him: “They developed a three-cylinder because…

PEOPLE There’s not much Nick Jefferies hasn’t done on a motorcycle. Nick, a former factory Honda trials rider in the 1970s, won the Manx Two-Day trial in 1976 before switching to road racing and winning the Senior Manx Grand Prix in 1983 and the Formula 1 TT race in 1993. He remains the only man ever to have achieved this unique hat-trick across radically different riding disciplines. But perhaps Jefferies’ most impressive feat was to return to the TT Mountain Course in his mid-60s and get back on the podium in the 2015 Manx GP Supertwins race, exactly 40 years after making his MGP debut. Comeback rides aside, Jefferies’ retirement from racing came at around the same time that his nephew, David Jefferies, lost his life in a tragic accident…