Classic Racer takes you so close you can actually smell the Castrol R. With the world's finest archive, and an editorial team who live and breathe the sport, the only way you'll get closer will be to put on your leathers.
With MotoGP being a somewhat sterile environment at the moment, we here at CR love to look back at some of the more colourful characters from Grand Prix racing. And they didn’t come more colourful than Marco Lucchinelli… Marco would take his only 500cc Grand Prix title in 1981 – 40 years ago this year – but he was a multiple world champion of fun: it has often been said that while he could ‘sometimes’ out-ride his rivals he could ‘always’ out-party them. But don’t let the party animal image fool you – ‘Lucky’ as he was called, was also a shrewd racer. Starting out aged 20 – an age most of the current crop of riders would have been going for at least a decade – Lucchinelli was on…
Mick Hemmings, legendary racer and tuner, passed away on May 17, 2021 and still managed to get a ‘final lap’ in of Silverstone circuit in June. Mick’s final lap was in a private ambulance, driven around Silverstone for two ‘spirited’ laps on Friday June 4. At the wheel was his best friendTim Abbott and also aboard were son Steve and Mick’s great pal Keith Huewen. Wife Angie looked on, happy that one of Mick’s wishes would be fulfilled, one which was made more than 30 years previously withTim at a clay pigeon shoot. Mick was a legend. He joined the motorcycle trade in 1959 and worked in a number of Northamptonshire motorcycle dealers. In 1969 he bought his first Norton Commando – it was a crashed and sorry-looking machine, but…
There was a time when the Suzuka 8 Hours was the most important race on the calendar for the Japanese factories. This shows in the list of winners – many were the various factories’ golden boys of the time, which is why it reads like a roll-call of the great and the good, from both two-stroke and four-stroke racing: Wayne Gardner, Eddie Lawson, Mick Doohan, Wayne Rainey, Aaron Slight, Scott Russell, Fred Merkel, Kevin Magee, Colin Edwards… And, Valentino Rossi. Interestingly, Rossi actually WANTED to race the 8 Hours, when previous Grand Prix legends would see it as an unwelcome distraction to the real aim of 500cc championship glory, especially with the fact that most 8 Hours were held in 35°C heat with 80% humidity. But Rossi – ever a…
Recall them all… Dear CR As an avid enthusiast and collector of John Player Norton race bikes I was deeply saddened at the passing of Peter Williams late last year. I knew Peter for some 35 years and spent many hours with him talking about his racing forTom Arter and his development of the Arter 7R and G50 engine machines, plus his programme of building and racing the 750cc John Player Commando-engine race bikes. We all appreciate what a fine rider Peter was, together with his very fertile mind often thinking well outside the box. When assessing the JPN racing period from 1971-75, with what was a small budget compared to overseas rivals, in my opinion the team achieved a great deal. In reality the team was actually quite small,…
DUNLOP DEBUTS AT STAFFORD! Road-race star Michael Dunlop is set to take centre stage at the 2021 Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show on October 9-10. The 19-times TT race winner is the first rider to complete a lap of the most famous road racing course in the world in under 17 minutes, with an average speed of 134mph. He is also the last member of the Dunlop quartet who has dominated motorcycle road racing for more than 40 years. Despite losing his uncle Joey, father Robert and elder brother William on the roads, Michael continues to race and is currently chasing his Uncle Joey’s world record of 26 Isle of Man TT wins. Fans will be able to hear from the man himself as he chats to TT commentator and former…
Firstly, a couple of apologies! Thanks to the pandemic we’ve had to play fast and loose with the magazine when it comes to events and reports of race meetings, as we simply don’t know if they will happen!To this end you’ll notice that we have dropped our Yoshimura part two feature until the next issue, this is so we can cram in the CRMC meeting at Cadwell Park and the Spring Cup at Oliver’s Mount. What I would like to say to any classic racing club secretary out there is ‘give us a bell’ or drop us an email so we can try and get your events and rescheduled race calenders into our pages. This brings me neatly on to my next call to arms: this is your magazine. You’ll…
