Innehållsförteckning för July - August 2022 från Classic Racer

Racers love to get the full ‘gentleman’s set’ of pole position, race win and fastest lap, and Barry Sheene achieved just that at the Swedish Grand Prix of 1977… Barry put his Suzuki RG500 on pole position at the 2.497-mile Anderstorp circuit for the 28-lap race with a best time of 1m 40.28s ahead of his rivals Johnny Cecotto, Pat Hennen and Giacomo Agostini on the grid. Despite not getting the best of push starts, Barry would win the race from Cecotto by just under three seconds, with Baker in 3rd and Steve ‘Stavros’ Parrish in an excellent 4th place. Sheene’s best lap of 1m 39.80s would also be the fastest of the race. In his book ‘Leader of the Pack’ with Ian Beacham, Barry says: “It was another maximum…

The first rounds of the British Historic Racing/Vintage Motor Cycle Club season took place at Mallory Park recently. April 9/10 should have seen rounds one and two at the Leicestershire circuit but tragedy struck when the meeting on day two was abandoned due to a fatality early on in the morning. With the meetings at Cadwell Park and Anglesey being held over May 14/15, June 11/12 respectively, the rest of the calendar for 2022 looks like this: Pembrey July 23/24 Darley Moor August 13/14 Cadwell Park September 24/25…

COLIN LOGUE SAYS: “Back in the 1980/90s I worked part-time for a racing magazine. During that time I took hundreds of photos, most of them action shots. However, one of my favourites is the one of Joey Dunlop walking through the crowd at a North West 200. This photo tells you everything about the wonderful and unique character of the man. He was aTT legend and world champion, yet the look on the guy’s face in the red jacket says it all really: ‘There's Joey: He’s just one of us.’The two other action shots are Joey in the lead at the North West ahead of Philip McCallen and brother Robert Dunlop, and a typical Joey in action ‘flying’ between the hedges. I hope you like the shots.” PAUL STALLARD SAYS:…

Taking part in the 1989 Macau Grand Prix was completely different to anything Eddie Laycock could have ever imagined… MikeTrimby had arranged the invite whilst all flights, freight and hotels were paid for by the organisers.The humidity was almost oppressive while the curious culinary delights were not to the Irishman’s liking: Eddie would stick to McDonalds for his entire trip…The racing diet wasn’t too bad – he finished 4th behind winner Robert Dunlop, Phillip McCallen and Steve Hislop. From 1990, Eddie would be more of an international racer, rather than a domestic one: his only non-GP races that year were the North West, the TT, the Ulster and Macau. First up, the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez, southern Spain, which was a long drive from Dublin… As a privateer Eddie…

It’s 1984 and the Transatlantic Trophy isn’t quite what it used to be… Thanks to issues with the circuits used in the previous events, Donington Park owner Tom Wheatcroft had to step in to use the Leicestershire track for all six races held over Easter Sunday and Monday in front of 85,000 fans. The American team would feature the top riders of the time, competing at home and abroad – although Wayne Rainey would crash in practice, and be ruled out of the races thanks to injury and Freddie Spencer would crash and break bones in both his feet. The team facing them was a mixed British/Commonwealth contingent, including Australian Wayne Gardner and Kiwi Graeme Crosby. Despite the Americans winning all the races, the British Commonwealth team would win on…

TEAM HATES! Dear CR Just wanted to say how much I giggled at the ‘Team-Hates’ feature in the last issue. I could almost hear some of the stars you featured say some of those words – especially Graeme ‘Croz’ Crosby: I can’t wait for the second part of this feature. I would love to hear more of this – maybe even getting a head -to - head with people who went through really tight title fights. I bet age has mellowed them, eh? My only thought to ‘Team Hates’ is whether you should have included Barry Sheene – wasn’t he a bloody nightmare with anyone he was plonked in a team with? I’m sure many of his former team-mates would agree, even if they (like the rest of us) miss…

On July 10, 1999, Brands Hatch played host to the final running of the Bill Ivy Memorial Meeting, with the Bill IvyTrophy being awarded for the final time before being ‘retired’. Many people helped to make that star-studded tribute/celebration happen, but one man who was instrumental in gathering so many stars together that day is the subject of this article, Roy Francis. It was fitting that Roy should have been so involved as he had been a friend to ‘Little Bill’ from primary school days right through until the day in 1969 when Bill crashed the four-cylinder two-stroke Jawa in practice for the East German GP at Sachsenring. Roy’s own racing career began in 1962, three years after Ivy, riding his Honda Benly Super Sports road bike, at a time…

In 1992, with the World Superbike Championship celebrating its fifth anniversary, there was a widespread feeling among all teams and manufacturers that it was time to take stock of the previous half-decade of world-level four-stroke racing. No motorcycle then dominated its own racing category at world level as totally as the desmoquattro Ducati 888 twin, leading to widespread complaints by the four-cylinder faction that the technical dice were loaded against them. But back when the Superbike World Series was conceived by Steve McLaughlin and his colleagues, the idea that any twin could compete with a four-cylinder bike on level terms was pretty unrealistic. So to encourage the Italians (and, it must be said, Harley-Davidson and BMW, too) into broadening the scope of the series, the founding fathers and the FIM…

“SILVERSTONES PROVED POPULAR BOTH AT CLUB AND NATIONAL RACES, 95 WERE BUILT THAT YEAR.” IN DETAIL : Some motorcycle companies ‘march to a different drum’ – Greeves was one of those! In 1941 Bert Greeves teamed up with disabled Derry Cobb to make three-wheel vehicles for the disabled under the name Invacar (invalid carriages was the name given to these vehicles at the time). The demand for such vehicles during and immediately after the Second World War was high, enabling the company to grow and prosper. In 1951 the company diversified into motorcycles as a hedge against Invacar’s Government contracts coming to an end. After much development, a line of Greeves motorcycles was launched in 1954: two street models, a trials bike and MX machine all powered by Villiers 197cc…

“THE 500CC MOTOR PRODUCED 98HP AT THE START OF 1949 SEASON, (THE 350 68HP) BUT 110HP WAS AVAILABLE FOR RECORD BREAKING ATTEMPTS IN 1951 AND 1956 WHEN AN RK-POWERED STREAMLINER ACHIEVED 205MPH (330KPH). AS LATE AS 1966 WILHELM HERZ SET THE 10 KILOMETRE RECORD AT 192MPH (309KPH.) TWO DOUBLE-ROW PRIMARY DRIVE CHAINS LURK BEHIND THE IMPRESSIVE MAGNESIUM SIDE COVER.”…

I am an avid reader of Classic Racer which I receive every other month in sunny California. I would like to share my story of the early involvement in 50 and 125cc racing by the Derbi-Rabasa motorcycle company of Mollet del Valles, from 1960 through 1965, as its technicians and racing drivers were learning the ropes against the might of Honda, Suzuki, MZ, Maico etc in the 50 and 125cc classes. Beginning in 1969, they won 21 world championships, until 2001. 2022 is the 100th anniversary of the marque, founded by Simeon Rabasa in 1922. I was involved with the marque from 1963, when I began racing in the 50 and 125cc classes in France with very limited financial means. By year-end, I was entrusted with a works-supported Derbi machine…

Fabrizio Pirovano was the original ‘pocket rocket’ and his all-action style, clambering all over his BYRDYamaha OW-01 in the early 1990s, was the stuff of legend. A rock-hard motocrosser, he was a national champion in that tough regime, before heading to the tarmac in 1986. Just two years later and he was fighting for the World Superbike championship, such was his adaptability. He was a real character in the mould of what the WSB series was aimed at: a talented privateer with a modicum of factory support. His 1988 FZ750 was emblazoned with a raft of small sponsors in a team managed by his sister. But his stature grew (even if he didn’t, he got the pocket rocket nickname for a reason) and his 10 race wins in WSB as…

Thirty years ago in 1992, Ducati made it a hat-trick of World Superbike crowns for the Italian manufacturer, thanks to its reigning champion Doug Polen successfully defending his title on his Ducati 888 run by the Police-sponsored factory race team – oh, that’s the Italian sunglasses company, not the local Carabinieri! “THE DUCATI’S MIDRANGE POWER DELIVERY WAS SO STRONG COMPARED TO THE HIGHER-REVVING FOUR-CYLINDER RIVALS.” Ducati’s feat in wresting World Superbike supremacy away from the Japanese and Honda in 1990 was matched only by its achievement in retaining the title in 1991, courtesy of Texan newcomer Polen. Running a tight budget, Doug’s ex-pat Italian team owner/manager/tuner/race engineer Eraldo Ferracci, who’d been based in the USA for the past quarter century, teamed up with the dynamic duo of Ducati Euro-tuners Giorgio…

Despite winning the first two of Grand Prix road racing’s 350cc World Championships ever staged in 1949-50, courtesy of Freddie Frith and Bob Foster, the Velocette KTT Mark VIII was a two-wheeled anachronism that ended up being much more than the sum of its parts. A true crossover model spanning two distinct eras in motorcycle design, its massively finned and ultra-purposeful looking engine in both SOHC customer and DOHC factory guise appeared at odds with its tall build and spindly-looking Webb girder fork with a single central spring and twin friction dampers.Yet although Velocette was the last major manufacturer to retain such a front-end, it was conversely the forerunner in using then avant-garde swingarm rear suspension with twin Dowty springless oleo-pneumatic units.The resultant cocktail of old and new permitted the…

Elvis died, the Queen celebrated her silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols were causing anarchy in the UK, the first Star Wars film was released, and Evel Knievel attempted to jump over a tank full of live sharks. 1977 was a good year, and it was made even more magical for us Brits when Barry Sheene won his second consecutive 500cc world championship. Despite having won the 1976 world title on a Suzuki, it was by no means certain that Sheene would sign up with the firm again to defend it – or at least that’s what he wanted Suzuki to think. Sheene saw himself as the number one rider at Suzuki, with John Williams and John Newbold acting only as a kind of support act, and Barry was sick of…

It’s a long journey to Pembrey for many members but well worth it when you get there with its wide variety of corners, curves and straights, and for spectators there are some excellent views to be had from the grassy banking. Easter holiday weather in the UK is notoriously fickle so it came as a very pleasant bonus that the meeting was run in perfect conditions with almost wall-to-wall sunshine. Even Sunday’s threatened rain had the decency to hold off until just after the final race had been completed: what a result! With everyone feeling the effects of the cost of living crisis it was encouraging to see a substantial entry in all events, with plenty of the usual suspects on show, together with a crop of newcomers. As for…

It's a rule of thumb in racing that you have to beat your team-mate. And to beat him (or her) you must employ every method at your disposal…After all, all is fair in love, war and motorcycle racing, right? It makes sense to have two riders in a team: it aids machine development, gives the sponsors more bang for their buck and gives two bites at the podium placings and overall championship. But – as we said last issue – when you have two riders on the same (or very similar) bikes, it all becomes painfully obvious who's best. Suddenly the number one person to beat becomes your team-mate and – while we said ‘same or similar’ bikes – of course internal politics can also blur the lines as to…