Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2022 i Classic Racer

2021 is a landmark year in Grand Prix history, poignantly so with the retirement of Valentino Rossi, after contesting a massive 423 GP races, resulting in 115 victories, 235 podiums and nine world championships, no less than seven of them in the iconic 500cc/MotoGP class. Surely this is a record which gives him a strong claim to the title of GOAT or ‘Greatest Of All Time?’ 2021 is also the 20th anniversary since the 500cc V4 monsters were on the grid alone: they would be joined by the 990cc four-strokes from 2002, with only independent teams fielding the two-stroke 500s in 2002, before they disappeared altogether – albeit making the odd comeback in 2003 in the hands of the Proton team, run by Kenny Roberts when they fielded their KR3…

Today’s MotoGP rules limit tyre type and make, bore size, number of engines per season, engine updates, fairing updates, testing, number of teams… and so it goes on. When Honda first entered the GP scene in 1959, there were few restrictions. The five solo classes each had minimum weight limits, only gasoline could to be used and supercharging was banned. “REALISING THEY WERE BEING CAUGHT, HONDA DESIGNED AN UPDATED MOTOR FOR 1966, ENABLING IT TO REV TO 21,000RPM AND PRODUCE AN ASTOUNDING 38BHP: THIS WAS THE RC149.” ‘Generic’ rules mostly related to safety; race bikes had to be able to bank over 45 degrees with nothing touching, oil and fuel fittings had to be safety wired as did oil drain bolts. There were no restrictions on number of cylinders, bore…

Apart from one-off prototypes, few Norton twins are as rare and mysterious as the Thruxton Club racer. Barely a handful exist: and even those who own them can’t really be sure where the others are. Amongst fans of Norton racing lore, the machine, also known as the TX750, is seen as the factory’s most highly-developed version of the Commando to be sold by the factory. It was a project started by the Norton racing team based at the Thruxton circuit in 1975, during the period after the successful John Player-backed Commando-powered racers developed by Peter Williams had yet to be replaced by the more powerful DOHC eight-valve Cosworth twin designed by Keith Duckworth using Formula 1 engine practice. Aimed at club racers, the TX750 would use a higher-revving short-stroke version…

Following the Covid-delayed start to the CRMC season, Anglesey’s Trac Mon circuit saw the club running its fourth meeting in the space of just two months. Despite the pressures this put on both human and financial resources, the crammed paddock reflected the keenness of members to get back to action. Their reward being one of the best weekends of weather many could recall at the circuit renowned for its glorious mountain and ocean scenery but also its sometimes inhospitable conditions. Shorts and T-shirts were the order of the day and a few brave souls even indulged in a spot of sea bathing before getting down to the business in hand! With just Croft to come this was always going to be a crunch meeting in deciding who was going to…

LEGENDS ALL! Dear CR The latest issue just landed on the doormat and I have to say it’s getting better and better! The inclusion of articles from the 1980s and 1990s is excellent, I know there are one or two people who complain about more modern stuff appearing, however, 1980 is 41 years ago now so surely fits the criteria of ‘classic?’ I loved the articles on Stavros, the Boost Boys’ battle in 1996, J F Balde and the ‘Whatever Happened to Cyril Smith?’ write up – characters one and all. Keep up the good work. I’ve extended my subscription for another two years! Tim Claridge The Editor says: “Thanks Tim, we know we can’t get the balance right every time but we do listen – so, everyone needs to…

Apparently, in sport or business you can’t be a winner and a nice guy: this is not true, we only have to mention the name of Paul Smart to prove that point… He was one of motorcycle racing’s true international superstars, travelling the world in pursuit of victories, but still remaining a down-to-earth man from Kent. A testament to this being when he bookended his 1972 season by winning the two richest motorcycle races in the world at that time.The winner’s share of the combined prize funds for the Imola 200 in Italy and the Champion Spark Plug 250 at Ontario Motor Speedway, California totalled US$25,000 back then, which is the equivalent of US$165,000 today – around £125,000… Rivals would have loved those big paydays, but not a single one…

The idea of developing a short-stroke 750 twin that would have potential for more power, came up after the design of the 850 twin had been completed in 1972. A year earlier, aged 22, Basil Knight had been working as an engineering draughtsman at the Norton Villiers Performance Shop at Thruxton, drawing up production racer parts, and was managed by Peter Inchley. Basil also did work for the AJS works scramblers team, which operated from the same building. “Only after I had been told of the bigger engine, the 830cc unit, did I ask what they had changed to increase the capacity,” says Basil. “When they said it had a bigger bore, I did a quick calculation and came up with the short-stroke suggestion. If we shortened the stroke to…

After a season that saw numerous pandemic-related obstacles hurled in its path, the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club nonetheless found itself completing its full seven-meeting programme on schedule at Croft circuit, with a strong entry and big crowds who found themselves contending with a mix of weather. By the end of Sunday all the CRMC’s club and ACU championships had been resolved and the one-off Races of the Year for each class fought to their conclusion, leaving the club to rightly look back with some pride on a season that had been fulfilled against all the odds. Despite the difficulties, this season has in many ways been one of the best with a great mix of youth and experience on show and big entries as both two and three-wheeler competitors sought…

It is now 25 years sinceTroy Gordon Corser became the-then youngest ever World Superbike Champion aged just 24, as well as the first ever Australian to win the title… Troy started racing late by today’s standards at Oran Park aged 18, he would net a number of wins/State Championships on his proddie Suzuki RGV250 (he’d win the Australian National 250 Production title in 1990) before hitting the four-strokes in 1992, when he raced aYamaha OW-01. Corser would ride for the Winfield Honda team for 1993 where he’d take the Australian SuperbikeTitle, backing this up with the AMA title Stateside in 1994 in his rookie year: impressive and the first non-American to do so… A few wild-card rides that year in WSB showed his talent (he grabbed podiums at Donington Park,…

The editor and co-founder of Motor Cycle News, Cyril Quantrill, could hardly have wished for a bigger story for the first issue of the new weekly. The date was November 30, 1955, and the story making the headline of ‘Geoff Duke suspended’ was the decision of the governing body of motorcycle sport, the Commission Sportive of the Federation Internationale Motocycliste, to ban 14 British and Commonwealth riders for six months commencing January 1, 1956.The ban was the outcome of the so-called riders’ strike at the 1955 Dutch TT, and it effectively ended any World Championship hopes for Geoff Duke and Reg Armstrong, and, because the ban extended worldwide, it also took away the immediate means of earning a living for banned riders of the Continental Circus. The whys and wherefores…

In 1980 Joey Dunlop came very close to turning his back on road racing and focusing on short circuit racing instead: had he not won the Classic TT that year, his entire career might have been very different. Joey’s brother-in-law, Mervyn Robinson, was killed at the North West 200 in 1980 and there had been further deaths at the Cookstown 100 that year. It was such a dark period that Joey felt road racing was living on borrowed time and that he would be best to turn his back on it. “I can’t see much future for racing on public roads after all the accidents this year,” he admitted ahead of the TT that year. “I’m hoping to get a 500 Suzuki for UK meetings after the TT. If I…

“THE 1963 250 CHAMPIONSHIP WAS CONTESTED OVER 10 ROUNDS WITH BOTH HONDA’S JIM REDMAN AND PROVINI TAKING FOUR WINS APIECE. HOWEVER, MORINI DID NOT RACE AT THE ISLE OF MAN – OFFICIALLY DUE TO SAFETY CONCERNS, UNOFFICIALLY DUE TO COST – OR THE EAST GERMAN GP, AS THE TEAM WAS UNABLE TO CROSS THE BORDER DUE TO VISA PROBLEMS. AT THE FINAL RACE OF THE SEASON IN JAPAN, (MORINI WAS ONLY ABLE TO COMPETE BECAUSE THE ITALIAN MOTORCYCLE FEDERATION PAID THEIR EXPENSES) PROVINI NEEDED A 3RD TO TAKE THE TITLE BUT ILLNESS MEANT HE COULD ONLY MANAGE 5TH. HE FINISHED TWO POINTS BEHIND CHAMPION REDMAN.”…

Valentino Rossi’s victory in the 2001 Brazilian GP in Rio on his NSR500 represented the end-game for the 500cc two-stroke four-cylinder motorcycle in the premier class. It also was a final hurrah for the ultimate evolution of what turned out to be the 500cc category’s longest-lived, and most successful, factory racer. The 18-year career of the NSR500 at the top of the 500cc World Championship points tables makes Honda’s V4 two-stroke the best of the best. Better than the other factory two-stroke V4s that would pick up titles here and there. When Rossi won the NSR’s final race at the end of the 2001 season, the bike he was riding was the ultimate evolution of the breed which was born almost two decades before… It could be argued that rivals…