Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2022 i Classic Racer

For the 1967 SeniorTT, Mike Hailwood faced a bit of a challenge in his bid to score his second hat-trick of wins around the Isle of Man course – but lady luck was smiling… This was the diamond jubilee week for the event and Giacomo Agostini had lapped in practice at 106.56mph, and the crowd had been wowed by the Italian’s opening lap in the race of 108.38mph – a new absolute lap record. As he was leading Hailwood by 11.8 seconds, surely the Briton couldn’t respond? As Mike streaked across the line, fans could see him giving a ‘thumbs down’ to the pit-wall… Ago and Mike had left the others trailing – this was going to be a battle between two greats. Mike dug deep and set a new…

It sounds so simple, produce more power and the bike will go faster. However, for straight-line speed to translate into correspondingly lower lap times the cycle parts must be up to the task, and occasionally that doesn’t quite happen. Suzuki’s first TR750 ‘Flexi-fliers’ might be considered as examples, and anyone who was fortunate enough to witness Mike Hailwood’s now legendary efforts in riding the evil-handling Honda in the 1967 Senior TT will never forget the experience. However, there can now be few still alive who could say they had witnessed a comparable ride in 1939 when Belfast-born Walter Rusk rode the supercharged, water-cooled V4 AJS to record the first 100mph lap of the Clady circuit in that year’s Ulster Grand Prix, the first 100mph lap by a British rider on…

For eight successive seasons the world’s first – and so far only – Rotary-engined race bikes swept to serial success on British racetracks, and whether you were a jingoistic Brit, waving a patriotic flag for the rotaries, or doubtful of their legality, you can’t say that they didn’t inject a certain something into the mix. 1987 In this year, Norton development engineer Brian Crighton constructs a 120bhp Spondonframed RC588 Rotary racer weighing just 140 kilos, using an air-cooled twin-rotor engine originally producing 80bhp sourced from a crashed Interpol II police bike. The Interpol II was a model which was the lifeblood of the Shenstone-based Norton concern. The company itself had been purchased in February that year by South African financier Philippe LeRoux and associates for £1.64 million. After the resultant…

“A TALENTED RIDER, AN ASTUTE BUSINESSMAN AND BIKE SHOP FRANCHISE OWNER, TONY JEFFERIES LIVED HIS LIFE SURROUNDED BY MOTORCYCLES.” From enjoying a short but spectacular career as a racer, to running one of the country’s best bike dealerships, to guiding the career of a TT legend, Tony Jefferies’ entire life revolved around motorcycles. As the son of trials expert, TT racer, and bike dealer Allan Jefferies, the brother of hugely successful trials rider and road racer Nick Jefferies, and the father of all-time TT great David Jefferies, Tony seemed to be at the centre of the motorcycling world throughout his life. Born in 1948, he left school in 1965 to take up an apprenticeship with the BSA Group, although he would finish his apprenticeship withTriumph in its service and experimental…

Back in 1981 I knew I had a chance, and was confident of an Isle of ManTT victory when I lined up for the start of the Formula One race. Graeme Crosby had a chain problem so wasn’t allowed to set off at his allocated time slot: instead he was made to start from way down the field.To me, that meant it was down to Joey Dunlop and myself. In the race, Joey had to change a tyre at the pit stop but I was flying. Only the bike I was on could beat me now, so I backed off a little bit. Finally I passed the flag and doubled back up the slip-road to celebrate. Ann was there and hugged me.The mechanics were all slapping my back: in all…

In the late 1980s there was a widening gap between 500GP racing’s haves, and have-nots – which is to say, between the works V4s, including the fledgling Italian Cagiva team, and the mostly Honda or Yamaha-mounted privateers. The only way to avoid also-ran status was to come up with the massive sponsorship necessary to lease an NSR500 Honda or YZR500 Yamaha. If your budget wasn't big enough, forget it. Actually, there was an alternative: build your own engine, a path trod with a little success by the Italian Paton team and by Frenchman Claude Fior, whose inline across-the-frame four debuted at the Japanese GP in March 1988. After inevitable teething troubles, the Fior gradually advanced up the list of finishers until it equalled the best of the three-cylinder privateers. It…

Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey had already clashed in the AMA Superbike championship in the States, but it was their monumental battles in the 1987 Transatlantic Challenge that turned dislike to hate and began one of the most bitter grudge matches ever seen in racing. Kevin Schwantz truly hated Wayne Rainey, and Wayne Rainey truly hated Kevin Schwantz. It wasn’t for the benefit of the press, it wasn’t for TV audience ratings, it wasn’t faked in any way – it was real. The 1987 Transatlantic Challenge pitted a team of hand-picked British riders against an equivalent team from the USA and ran over nine races, held at Brands Hatch and Donington Park over Easter weekend. Ostensibly, the idea was for each team to work together to score more points than…

Earlier in this issue, we look at one of racing’s great rivalries – Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz – but just imagine if they were on the same team? It could have happened, maybe, possibly, but then Kevin has gone on record saying maybe he couldn’t have worked under ‘King’ Kenny Roberts, and Wayne had his own battles to fight with his team-mates as well as with the Texan on and off-track. So, if legend says that motorcycle racing began when the second motorcycle was built, then the animosity between two riders of identical machines, on the same team, probably started around the same time… Classic motorcycle racing history is littered with rivalries and reputations which stood and fell on whether you could beat your teammate or not. We don’t…

Did anyone really think that even with the combination of Steve Hislop’s amazing talent and the sheer speed of the Norton NRS588 that they would win the 1992 Senior TT? The Formula 1 saw Hizzy take a 2nd place behind Honda’s Phillip McCallen, and ready for the Senior at the end of the week, along with some modifications – most notably, the removal of the front mudguard to aid the Rotary’s cooling. One man who did realise what was coming – eventually – was Carl Fogarty, who was racing the LoctiteYamaha OW-01 in the Formula 1 and Senior TTs. In the final race of the week, Foggy was wondering who was chasing him hard, he said: “I was trying to pull as much time as I could – and then…

Just more than 20 years ago, on December 13, 2001, the motorcycle world lost one of its greatest free thinkers and most innovative engineers, when 46-year old Frenchman Claude Fior was tragically killed at the controls of his self-built private plane, after crashing in dense fog on approach to the runway at the Nogaro race circuit in southwest France. With Fior’s death passed a man whose boundless creativity, matched by an appetite for fun, had graced the Grand Prix paddocks for more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s, and whose capacity for original thought marked him as a radical force in alternative motorcycle design. The distinctive Fior wishbone front suspension design, which dates back to 1976, has since been copied by designers all over the world, from Britain…

Motorcycles came to Eddie Laycock at an early age, in fact he had just turned 11 when he got his hands on a BSA Bantam. He enlisted the help of a neighbour, who was a spannerman for racer Denis Clancy, to check it over and get it started. Eddie’s maiden run was outside the house with mum watching: the throttle stuck open and he shot forward, completely out of control and ended up smashing into a tree. Eddie was soon back in the saddle, scorching a Honda 50 around a local farmer’s field, with his mates in tow – Eddie was by far the fastest. His first decent machine was a Bridgestone 175. Most of his mates were riding the larger and fasterYamaha 350cc R5s, but Eddie found that despite…