Innholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2022 i Classic Racer

With its massively finned overhead-cam engine, and the rakish appearance lent by its spindly-looking yet purposeful girder fork, the 350cc Velocette KTT Mk.VIII is unquestionably one of the most beautiful racing motorcycles ever built. Racers are supposed to be functional pieces of machinery, built for a purpose, but the KTT Mk.VIII combines form and function in a way that, on a purely subjective basis, I don't think any other single-cylinder motorcycle ever quite matched. There’s something indefinably attractive about the square finning of its single-OHC engine with just enough rounding-off of the edges, its ‘dog kennel’ rocker covers, the graceful sweep of the open-megaphone exhaust, and of course that handsome gold-lined black petrol tank with the discreet but classy Velocette logo that was ‘Always in the Picture’, according to the…

“WITH THE SIZE AND HANDLING OF A 250CC GP BIKE, A WEIGHT ADVANTAGE AND COMPETITIVE POWER, IT WAS REALLY ONLY THE CHANGE OF FORMULA TO MOTOGP 990CC FOUR-STROKES THAT STOPPED THE KR3 FROM MAKING A MUCH BIGGER IMPACT IN THE 500CC CLASS. IN THE END, TIME RAN OUT FOR THIS BRAVE ATTEMPT TO UPSET THE V4 TWO-STROKE ORTHODOXY.” Before there was Rossi, before there was Sheene, before there was Hailwood, there was a man who became the first mainstream superstar of motorcycle racing; the first to transcend the sport and become a pin-up and a household name. That name was Geoff Duke; a six-time world champion and six-time TT winner, in an era when winning a TT meant almost as much as winning a world title. What made Duke’s fame…

He may have been more than 1500 miles away from home, but for Colin Edwards he was home… Race two at Laguna Seca, California, July 14, 2002, and the Texas Tornado knew it was time to show who’s ‘king ding-a-ling’ around the 2.2 mile course. He’d lost the first race to his main title rival Troy Bayliss. The American sat 58 points behind the Australian and his potent Ducati. Troy by this point in the season had won 14 races compared to Colin’s two. What happened next is a fightback still talked of two decades on, and is a tale not without a dollop of superstition. Six wins from six starts andTroy Bayliss and his Ducati 998 F02 were looking like shoo-ins for the 2002 world superbike title. It was…

WHY DO YOU USE SO MANY! Dear CR Hello! Good magazine! And a Happy New Year! I’ve used so many exclamation marks here as you do seem very, very fond of them. Many of your readers appear to be older, and as such the overuse of them may quite possibly grate with them too. Will Slater The Editor says: “Well Will, we find that classic motorcycle racing is quite exciting so we sometimes use them. You say this is a ‘good magazine’ so we do hope that a few exclamation marks don’t detract from a magazine that you enjoy. Anyone else have issues with them?” STAR LETTER PRIZE Remember to keep sending in your letters. Now, more than ever, as we deal with the coronavirus situation, we want to…

In the late 1960s, production road race classes were gaining popularity, but as support races to the established GP classes. When BSA, Honda, Norton and Triumph launched 750cc street bikes, they realised racing in the production class would help their sales. Honda had a race kit for their CB750 and Norton had a ready-to-race Norvil production racer. BSA launched the three-cylinder Rocket 3 and Triumph their version, the T150 Trident in 1968. Both models were more powerful than the company’s twins, but weighed a lot more. “A FIVE-YEAR WINNING CAREER IN THE TT PRODUCTION RACE WAS UNHEARD OF AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, BUT THAT BEARS TESTAMENT TO THE OVERALL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ‘SLIPPERY SAM!’” In 1970 BSA and Triumph started race prepping stock bikes in their experimental/race departments. Initial reactions…

Troy Bayliss and Colin Edwards would race against each into 2003 and MotoGP. ForTroy, it was a relatively simple move through the Ducati works world superbike team into the MotoGP team to ride alongside Loris Capirossi. Colin’s route to MotoGP was more circuitous… Despite winning the 2002 world superbike title for Honda, Colin never got what he wanted for 2003: A factory Honda RC211V on Michelin tyres. Instead he ended up on the unfancied Aprilia RS Cube: But how? Well, it seems Honda wasn’t selling many VTR1000 SP-2s, so was shutting down its factory WSB operation... so the team told him to go looking at other options in the middle of 2002. Colin even offered to race for half or even a quarter of what he was on during 2002…

Twenty years ago, a sound was emanating from the tracks and pit lanes in Grand Prix racing that hadn’t been heard in quite some time. From the mid-1970s the two-stroke had been king, ever since Giacomo Agostini won his last 500cc world championship on the Yamaha OW-23, and this wasYamaha’s first rider and championship title in the class. From then on, the 500cc two-stroke dominated, with the last four-stroke win of that era coming at the hands of Ago (who else) on a 500cc MV Agusta at the Nürburgring. The high-pitched shriek of the two-stroke 500cc machine, in various forms, be it square-four, V-twin or V4 would rule the paddock until the early 2000s. With development of the two-stroke effectively in a cul-de-sac, and with the road-going machines largely of…

Opportunity knocked for the subject of this issue’s ‘Whatever Happened To?’, the American racer Lance Weil. Firstly, something of a history lesson: the solo capacity classes for the inaugural FIM Road-Racing World Championships in 1949 were 500cc, 350cc, 250cc and 125cc. The 50cc class was added in 1962 (becoming the 80cc class in 1984) and the 350cc class was dropped after 1982. Organisers of other international, national and club races used similar classifications, but by the mid-1960s the limited availability of new ‘over-the-counter’ race bikes was impacting the sport. This was especially true of the 500cc class which was dominated numerically by the ageing Matchless G50 and Norton 30M Manx models, albeit with updated versions of the venerable singles from Colin Seeley and John Tickle respectively. Possibly taking some inspiration…

With the 2020 event cancelled, and the sad passing of patron Peter Williams in December of that year, December 2021’s CRMC annual general meeting and awards dinner saw one very important appointment. It was the pleasurable duty of chairman Gordon Russell to announce and welcome the club’s new patron, Alex George, and to present him with a scroll to mark his appointment. Alex has been a popular and long-term supporter of the CRMC in many capacities and a constant source of advice, knowledge and enthusiasm around the paddock. In accepting the patronage Alex paid a glowing tribute to his predecessor and spoke of his great pride in taking over the role. In an emotional eulogy, Phil Davenport announced the introduction of a magnificent new trophy provided by himself, Richard Peckett…

The Daytona 200 Mile race in 1972 marked a major turning point in the career of Paul Smart. He had turned his back on the European Grand Prix scene in favour of Formula 750 racing in the USA with Team Hansen, the official Kawasaki team. It had been Paul’s performance at Daytona in 1971 that had placed him so firmly on team manager Bob Hansen’s radar He had been a fast qualifier on his Triumph triple and was in the lead of the race, with only 40 of the 200 miles left to run, when the engine burned out its exhaust valves. But there was to be no repeat of that performance in 1972, instead, Paul’s dismal debut with the new Kawasaki 750cc H2R at Daytona lasted just two laps…

Way back when in early 1992, I was tinkering in the garage (no change there then) when I got a phone call from Neil Tuxworth, the-then Honda race team manager… He told me that Steve ‘Ziggy’ Ives had broken both his wrists and wouldn’t be able to ride the Honda-backed Magic Wheels VFR400R NC30 in the Supersport 400 British Championship for the rest of the year, and would I like to fill in for him. At the time I was also in the Magic Wheels Honda team, but running a CBR600 in the British 600 Supersport and RC30 in the Superbike series. We were struggling with the long-in-the-tooth RC30 to make it competitive so the chance to run the little 400 was a great opportunity. Despite being so early in…