Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2023 i Classic Racer

ARCHIVE Geoff Duke – not just a six-time world champion or six-time Isle of ManTT racer – he was much more than that… Geoff was the first superstar of two-wheeled racing, being a household name before the days of John Surtees, Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Barry Sheene. Like Sheene (and the later Valentino Rossi) he would transcend ‘mere’ motorcycle racing and become mainstream. He was an innovator, too: early in his career Duke had discovered the potential benefit of a tighter-fitting leather suit. When he taped back the baggy parts of his leather jacket and trousers he soon found he could cut through the air more easily and shave tenths off his lap times, he also wore the first ‘one-piece’ leather suit and helped develop proper racing boots. Post…

As we mourn the tragic events of May 1973 at Monza, now 50 years ago, which cost both his life and that of his great rival Jarno Saarinen, it’s sadly evident that Italian legend Renzo Pasolini is remembered as much for the way in which he lost his life, as what he achieved during it. Because for the best part of a decade the stocky, bespectacled, fun-loving rider from Rimini, whose father Massimo was himself an early-1950s world record-breaking star of the street circuits carved through the bomb sites of the war-ravaged country, was one half of Italy’s road-racing double act. Paso was the underdog, a working-class lad duelling with Giacomo Agostini, the man with the movie star looks and the charisma which came from riding the two-wheeled Ferraris bearing…

The current emphasis on aerodynamics in MotoGP and even in World Superbike, is something that’s been sitting around waiting to be revived for the past six decades. Ever since the FIM’s ban for the 1958 season of the so-called ‘dustbin’ fairings of the era, with their wind-cheating full-enclosure design aimed at maximising top speed down the straights of the fast GP circuits of the day, motorcycle bodywork has remained stuck in a groove. For 60 years the same essential format was followed, aimed at combining optimum straight-line performance with acceptable handling, while meeting the FIM’s requirement that the front wheel should be fully visible from the side, to avoid the problems with stability caused by side winds which the dustbin fairings created. But, in just the past couple of years…

CLASSIC TRACKS The land on which the circuit lies used to belong to Donington Hall Estate and it was first used to stage a motorcycle race on Whit Sunday of 1931. At that time, the riders just rode around the unpaved road that ran through the estate grounds. By 1933 former racer and secretary of the Derby & District Motor Club, Fred Craner (who gave his name to the famous Craner Curves section) received permission to widen the roads used for racing and to lay Tarmac on it. At a cost of £12,000, Britain now had its first parkland racing circuit. After being used as a military vehicle storage depot during the Second World War, the circuit fell into a state of disrepair until local construction entrepreneur and car collector,…

ARCHIVE We’re never too old or experienced to learn something, and so it proved with Kenny Roberts – a three-time world champion at the penultimate race of the 1983 500cc season. He was battling the young gun – Freddie Spencer – in this titanic battle of established King and young pretender to the 500cc World Championship. Roberts was riding aYamaha 0W70 V4 (seen here at the 1983Transatlantic Match Races at Donington) which – for the first time – was using the Deltabox aluminium beam frame, attached to a 17-inch front wheel. Running in a Marlboro-backed team alongside fellow Californian Eddie Lawson (and with Giacomo Agostini as team boss) many felt this was Kenny’s best chance of recapturing his crown after Suzuki’s two titles in 1981 and 1982. Up against him…

PEOPLE “During the 12-year period that he made motorcycling competition his main and/or sole means of livelihood, he typified all that was best in professionalism. Though essentially an enthusiastic all-rounder he was always a force for the racing ‘maestri’ to reckon with. Tenacious as the badgers of his native Gloucestershire, he was, in adversity, worth a wagon-load of Gunga Dins. And, in spite of the severe handicap of an asthmatical and bronchial tendency, he was just as tough as you’d expect a sprig of Cotswold farming stock to be.” Such extravagant prose was unusual even in the late 1950s when it appeared, firstly in the weekly magazine Motor Cycling, then in book form in ‘Past-masters of Speed’, but it was journalist Dennis May’s unmistakeable style, and it presents a good,…

PEOPLE A bunch of mates were travelling between parties late one Saturday night in Wellington, New Zealand. I was minding my own business in the back seat of a posh-looking Jaguar XJ6, the young sober driver wore his chauffeur’s hat laughing at our tales and shenanigans. All of a sudden the brakes are applied, the Jag reverses back into a dark gravel lay-by and we’re doing doughnuts like you wouldn’t believe. The show finishes as fast as it began and our chauffeur slowly pulls back into traffic, we’re on our merry way leaving a cloud of dust in our wake. We’re all grinning, especially the driver, Robert Holden, who never lost his enjoyment of life and went on to become a true Kiwi legend and an Isle of Man TT…

PEOPLE The words genius and tragedy are often overused, but it is surely beyond question that New Zealander John Britten was an engineering genius, and that his death from skin cancer in September 1995, aged 45, was a tragedy of significant proportions for the world of motorcycling. Though a crowded existence meant he had to combine two full-time careers as commercial property developer and hands-on two-wheeled visionary with family life, John Britten's achievements have received just acclaim the world over. The motorcycles he developed, by their technological excellence and avant-garde engineering, would have been sufficient by their very creation to ensure John's name was remembered. The fact that they also won races around the world by defeating the products of established manufacturers with far greater resources, only adds to the…

ARCHIVE Suzuki’s stunning-looking RGV500 Gamma will always be associated with lankyTexan Kevin Schwantz. With his cavalier riding style, he tamed the fast, but often fickle Suzuki 500cc V4 two-stroke while many others fell by the wayside. The general rule of thumb in the1990s was that the Honda NSR500 was the most powerful, theYamahaYZR500 the most rideable and consistent and the RGV seemed to be good on the brakes (or was that thanks to Schwantz?) but lacked consistency on all tracks. But how did the RGV really compare? Niall Mackenzie was close to a Suzuki 500cc GP ride in 1986, riding the old square four XR70 – but he took up Honda’s offer for 1987 before moving to Yamaha for 1989. By 1990 he’d joined Schwantz in the Lucky Strike-backed Suzuki…

Dream Machine is probably the longest-running specialist motorcycle painters in the UK… Formed back in 1977, they’ve been based in the Nottingham area since then, currently residing on an industrial estate in Long Eaton. Dream Machine had as many as 40 staff at one time and now, the firm has around 10, working on established aftermarket contracts for accessory manufacturers and servicing the burgeoning classics restoration and specials building market. For many years Dream Machine was the paint shop of choice for the major manufacturers of road machines and they’ve worked with Triumph, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Laverda, BMW, Norton, Honda, Kawasaki and Royal Enfield. Remember the lovely Marlboro Yamaha RD500LCs which Yamaha ‘produced’ to get shot of static stock: all painted by Dream Machine… Of course pretty much from day…

Gary Lingham is in reflective mood: “I never did get any factory support in my career,” he says. “I had a bit of interest from Honda at one point, but nothing really came of it.” He adds: “I remember once that another rider told me to ‘put my face about’ a bit more with the Honda people, but I’ve never been one for self-promotion or putting my face about – I always just did my own thing.” There were other opportunities but, for various reasons, none of them ever worked out. “At one stage, when I was doing the 500cc European Championship, Suzuki told me that, if I won the championship, they would give me a ride the following year. I ended up 2nd in the championship, due to a…