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.
Barry Sheene’s last year of racing was the 1984 season… a year earlier than planned. For Barry, it seemed neater to end at the close of the 1985 season, when he was 35 years of age. However, he finally announced his retirement at a press conference atThe Mayfair Hotel, London in January 1985 and it was understandable why. He said at the event: “Since the accident (Silverstone, 1982) it’s been very difficult for me to get a competitive bike, or one good enough to win the world championship on. I've been trying over the last couple of months, but I couldn’t get one, so now seemed like a good time to give it up.” Rumours were that he’d been asked by Italian firm Cagiva to run a couple of their…
ARCHIVE Perhaps needing the loo made Whitham fast at this event – at least that’s what top racer and paddock funny bloke James Michael Whitham (known to most as Jamie) reckons. He only won one World Superbike race – at Sentul in 1994, our shot here is from Albacete – and (despite being a factory Suzuki racer in 1997 and 1998) never repeated the feat. Riding for Hoss Elm’s Moto Cinelli team, they had factory Ducati 916 racers in a team run by Hoss, who was also the boss of Cinelli, then the UK’s Ducati importer for 1994. In his most excellent biography ‘What a good do’ Jamie says: “Sentul went right from the start – apart from me having the trots.You’re told to drink bottled water but I didn’t…
Troy Bayliss – teak-tough Aussie, hard b*stard, top racer and multiple world champion in World Superbikes, he’s also one of the few to have won in both WSB and 500cc/MotoGP… But – that MotoGP win took a long time coming. He’d had the odd wild-card race in 250s at World Championship level before, being drafted in to replace the injured Carl Fogarty, following the Brit’s career-ending crash in 2000. Of course, by now he was a British champion with GSE Racing and had been brought into the Ducati fold… It was a wise move as he’d win the 2001 series and run Colin Edwards very close for 2002 – then be taken into the new Ducati MotoGP squad for 2003. For whatever reasons, he was a little overshadowed by his…
When the elements blow full force and Mother Nature turns on the taps, the Outlast Sirius 2 Glove is your all-day companion. Waterproof and with a temperature regulating thermal lining... Find out more at www.weiseclothing.com Across 1 & 4 Across & 31 Down: The technical innovation that helped Wayne Rainey to his first 500cc GP win. (6,5,5,5) 9: British-born racer who won six world titles within four years, riding under a Rhodesian flag. (6)11: Late, great Flying Scotsman who was one of the best in the world during the 1930s. (5,7)12: Nakano-san, denied a World 250cc title by a fraction of a second to his team-mate Olivier. (6)14: What you need in a motorcycle’s radiators if she’s not air-cooled. (7)15: Riccardo, a GP points-scoring rider in the 1970s who has…
If you want to get in touch… Then please do. We read every letter, email and comment sent to us and we enjoy hearing from you whether it’s about an event coming up, a motorcycle you own or you just want to let us know about something you find interesting in CR’s world. Classic Racer, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs, LN9 6JR. CRletters@mortons.co.uk facebook.com/ClassicRacerMag/ A BETTER BALANCE? Dear CR I’m a recent ‘new purchaser’ of the magazine, having spotted it during 2023. I’m afraid I’m one of those who ‘picks and chooses’ as to whether I buy an issue or not, by flicking through them – hence I hate it when mags are placed in bags! Firstly, I’m guessing that as I’m in my early 40s…
PADDOCK GOSSIP CRMC NEWS Exciting news from the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club for 2024… First up, if you’re going cold turkey over your cold turkey and are itching to get out and race your classic, or watch people racing classics, then the CRMC’s new YouTube channel should give you a bit of a fix before the first race of the season. Head over to: www.youtube.com/@ClassicRacingMotorcycleChannel Next up is the introduction of Post Classic Era 3. At present, the club caters for (with a couple of exceptions) machines from several Classic (Pre 1973) and Post Classic (Pre 1987) eras. Now, for 2024 the club is extending the Post Classic Era cut-off date to accommodate 400 Supersport, 600 Supersport (to include 750 twins) and 750 Superbike (to include 1000cc twins) manufactured and…
