With a BSA you're faster far from home

Rage Against the Machine

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by Eric Johnson



Motorcycle racing is full of myth, folklore and larger than life legends. However, in the eyes of plenty, one of the greatest stories ever told took place in the summer of 1975 on a mile-long dirt oval in Indianapolis, Indiana.

image by mike stuhler

That year, Kenny Roberts was doing his best to beat back a number of beastly Harley-Davidsons that were trying to steal away his Grand National number one plate. Far more powerful, the Harley XRs were omnipotent and all seemed lost. Or was it? Before the race scheduled for the Indy Fairgrounds, Roberts and his mechanic took a huge gamble and shoehorned an engine far too powerful and potent for the bike into the spindly frame of his Champion Yamaha 750. When his mechanic asked him how fast he needed to go to win, Roberts replied, "About one thirty should be enough.”

image by mike stuhler

The 25-mile main event all came down to the final white flag lap. Having come from far behind, Roberts astride an evil-handling, ill-tempered motorcycle had taken huge chances and rode with extraordinary courage to reel in the two leading Harley-Davidsons of teammates Jay Springsteen and Korky Keener. With just three turns to go, Roberts rode the rim, pinned the throttle to the stops and was actually skimming the concrete retaining wall and skipping off hay bales.

image by mike stuhler

"I still remember seeing hay scattering in the air as Kenny came out of turn four,” reflected Robert’s’ mechanic of that night.

Roberts refused to lose and at the finish line, won the race by two feet. When he caught his breath and his hands stopped shaking, he uttered the words, "They don't pay me enough to ride that thing.”

All images by mike stuhler via : superbikeplanet

Sheldon's EMU

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Cybermotorcycle.com is a collection of articles, letters and emails about European Motorcycles - the result of research and correspondence dating back to 1994. The site now encompasses pages on some 500 different marques and numerous galleries containing thousands of images of contemporary, vintage, veteran and classic motorcycles and scooters, sidecars and minicars.



There are several active forums on specific British, Italian and German motorcycles with a host of resources for restorers and historians.



Please take time to visit this Great website here : Sheldon's EMU

"The King" Kenny Roberts To Ride Again

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Via the AMA PRO FLAT TRACK

AMA Pro Racing and Yamaha Motor Corporation to Pay Tribute to Motorcycle Hall of Famer and Legend Kenny Roberts at the Lucas Oil Indy Mile.

Time Set For "King Kenny" Roberts to Ride Again During the Legendary
Lucas Oil Indy Mile This Weekend.





AMA Pro Racing and Yamaha Motor Corporation will pay tribute and honor Kenny Roberts in recognition of the historic last lap win at the 1975 Indy mile on the Yamaha TZ750 that ultimately proved to be one of the most famous wins in American Dirt Track history.



Known as the King, Kenny Roberts a 2-time AMA Grand National Champion and 3-time World 500cc Champion, will take several hot laps, between the final Pro and Expert Main races, on the infamous Yamaha TZ-750 powered dirt tracker during the Lucas Oil Indy Mile AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National this weekend at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on Saturday night, August 29th.

Brand X

The whole day went incredibly well.
It was amazing. The best cafe racer went to Osamu Koyama and his Yamaha SR500 loaded with one-off and Japan-only parts. He's a jewelry designer and member of the Kaminari, a NY bosozoku-style biker gang of ex-pat Japanese artists and musicians. You can see Osa's work here : http://completetechnique.com/
The event had over 3000 artists, bikers, hipsters, designers Real Estate Magnates, Investment Bankers, etc.
Taka's performance was an amazing old-style "happening" with Free Jazz, Japanese Noise Rock, splatter-painting, power tools and a chorus of vintage 2-stroke and 4-stroke racers facing off across the layed-out canvas that covered the street.
Here is a few pics Grant took during the event.

Osamu on his white and red Yamaha SR500

Aero Leather

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All front quarter chrome tanned horsehide jackets carry the following lifetime guarantee, the leather and stitching on your front quarter chrome tanned horsehide jacket is guaranteed for life by Aero.



All other Aero Leather jackets have a lifetime guarantee on stitching and should at any time repair work be required on a lining, zip, stitching or any part of your jacket, it should be returned to the factory to have this work correctly carried out by one of the tailors originally responsible for manufacture of the jacket.



Aeroleather Clothing Ltd, based in Scotland, have been sole distributors for the world famous Aero leather jackets since 1983, although the basis of the company dates back to 1975, founded as a trading company specialising in original WWII flying jackets and vinatge US work wear leather jackets.

1973 Honda RC250 Works Bike

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By the 1970s, two-strokes reigned as the kings of motocross racing. And Honda wanted the crown.
Trouble was, the company, which had built its U.S. reputation on four-stroke streetbikes, didn’t have anything to compete against the light and powerful oil-burners of its competitors.

So Honda built a two-stroke, breaking with 14 years of U.S. four-stroke tradition to produce the now-legendary Elsinore motocross bike. And aimed right at the heart of the AMA National Motocross Championship was the trickest one of them all, this works RC250 racer, now on display in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum at AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio.
Besides the state-of-the-art, 249cc two-stroke motor that delivered the explosive power that motocross demanded, the bike was loaded with unobtainium parts, including magnesium hubs, electronic ignition and reed-valve induction.





The only thing missing was the rider, so Honda hired defending AMA 250cc Champion Gary Jones away from Yamaha and headed to the track. By the third race of the season, in Florida, Jones had won on the new machine. He went on to win five more races, including the last three of the season, to collect Honda’s first-ever MX championship.
Still, riding such a new machine did have its challenges.



The main one was all those trick factory race bits. When the ’73 motocross season began, Jones’ works bike was full of them. But as the season wore on, many of those parts couldn’t handle the strain. So Jones, working with his father and tuner, Don, wound up putting more and more production parts into the works bike to make it more reliable.



But the result was clear: Honda won the championship. And that did much to cement the image of the Elsinore as a thoroughbred, helping to sell countless versions of the production bike to amateur racers—and jump-starting the brand’s motocross racing reputation.

© 2009, Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum

Carlsbad Motorcycle Grand Prix 1970

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In 1970 after the Elsinore Grand Prix our local AMA District 38 dirt bike club, the Brush Barons, decided that it would be fun to host an Elsinore-like, multi-surface, dirt bike event at Carlsbad


via vintagemxr

Jeff Leighton’s Unit Custom

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Via Four Aces Cycle



Jeff Leighton’s Unit Custom. Jeff came to the shop wanting a unit construction hardtailed bike and left with a great bike and a part-time job. Jeff did what is probably the best thing you can do when talking to your bike builder. He told me, “I like clubman handle bars and low pipes.” I was to do the rest of the thinking and the building. I remembered doing the “Slimbo” bike several years back at the height of the wide-tired chopper era. I did Slimbo as a protest against all that is fat. I took the general idea of that bike and made something almost as slim, but with some more personality.



Jeff is heavily tattooed and he has several choice spiderwebs so we went with a spiderweb theme on this tank, fender and oil bag. Rick grindle painted the bike and laid down some really cool webs after Jeff’s tattoo artist drew them out on the tank. Rick also hand lettered the “Triumph” logo in yellow to match the black and yellow California license plate we had painted up for the bike. I used Jeff’s exhaust pipes as my prototype, soon to be Biltwell produced, exhaust tips on this bike. The result is a slim, trim sleek bike with lots of personality. Check the pipe extensions out at www.biltwellinc.com.

1971 Titanium Husqvarna

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Via the AMA motorcycle hall of fame


When Swedish MX star Lars Larsson lined up on this bike for the 1971 Indian Dunes motocross race in Southern California, his competition thought he was on a regular Husqvarna.



But Larsson knew better. He was aboard one of the rarest machines in the history of American motocross: a 400cc Husqvarna with a frame made of titanium. And he used it to win both motos and dominate the Inter-AMA series support class that year.
“Of course, my fellow racers came around wondering what kind of Husky I had,” recalls Larsson, who was instrumental in establishing Husqvarna in the U.S. and later went on to start Torsten Hallman Original Racewear, now known as Thor.

He told them: Hallman Racing had commissioned Pro-Fab to make a small run of light, strong and expensive titanium frames to accept Husky engines. Other weight-saving tweaks included titanium fork crowns, handlebars and axles. The fenders and seat base were thin plastic, the gas tank was aluminum, and various parts—including the brake pedal and ignition cover—were drilled to lighten them further.
The result weighed in at an amazing 189 pounds, or 25 pounds lighter than a comparable production Husqvarna.
The machine helped Larsson win four of six rounds of the Inter-AMA motocross series.
“It was a dream to ride,” Larsson remembers. “But what bike isn’t when you’re winning? ” Though legal when it was made, the frame was disallowed for the 1972 season by AMA officials, who feared titanium would escalate racing costs.

As it turned out, Larsson didn’t need a trick bike to win. He went on to earn a gold medal at the 1971 International Six Days Trials, riding for the U.S. in Czechoslovakia, and he remained a top enduro rider through the ’70s. He was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.
His titanium Husky, refitted with a 250cc engine after the original 400cc motor was destroyed in a car crash, is on display as part of the Museum’s “Motocross America” exhibit.

1956 Corvette SR-2

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via the tamsoldracecarsite


Corvette expert Jim Gessner contributed these photos & info on this experimental Corvette, the precursor to the legendary "Corvette SS".



"In March 1956 Fred Warner, General Motors PR man for Chevrolet and racer himself, delivers the Corvette SR-2 to Road America. Harley Earl gave the car to his son Jerry to race. Jerry had been racing Ferraris until he received this car and GM frowned on that activity."



The car in the dusty pit area at Road America. "The SR-2 acronym stood for "Sebring Racer" or alternatively "Sports Racing." Starting with a Sebring Corvette chassis, the SR-2 sprouted a rear fin, two small racing windscreens, air scoops on the side coves and an extended front end with driving lights that gave the machine a purposeful appearance. "



Another look at the SR-2 at Road America. "Corvette repeated as the GT class champion at the 1957 Sebring enduro -- although it was a production model, not one of the sleek SR-2s, that took the honors. The SR-2 redeemed itself by winning the Sports Car Club of America's class B-Modified championship in 1957."

Bultaco Sherpa T

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Perhaps the most famous Bultaco model is the Sherpa T, a trials bike, which revolutionised the sport in the 1960s. At that time trials was almost exclusively a British sport using big heavy four-stroke machines. Irish trials ace Sammy Miller worked with señor Bultó to produce a lightweight two-stroke machine which, overnight, rendered the heavy four-strokes obsolete. This coincided with and, perhaps, stimulated the growth in the popularity of trials in Europe and later the USA, which provided a lucrative market for Bultaco in the years to come.



Bultaco's premier model in the USA, the Pursang, was an excellent handling and powerful 250 cc competition model that could readily compete in virtually any type of speed-based off-road competition. In later models this was expanded to 125cc, 360cc and 370cc Other models, such as the Sherpa T (trials), the Astro (flat tracker) and the Matador (trail bike), provided more targeted approaches to specific types of races.



Bultaco motorcycles were mainly powered by single-cylinder, air cooled, two stroke engines, but they also made water cooled versions. The rider was required to mix the oil and gasoline manually. Built in Barcelona, Spain, Bultaco motorcycles were exported throughout the world, but their largest market ultimately became the USA, allowing aspiring racers to purchase legitimately competitive motorcycles right out of the box.



Due to industrial unrest and market pressures, Bultaco production closed in 1979. The factory reopened in 1980, but closed again in 1983.



MotoGP star, Sete Gibernau is the grandson of the founder of Bultaco, Paco Bultó. Legend has it that Mr. Bultó asked to be buried "with his Bultaco t-shirt and his moustache properly waxed".

Ducati 750 Imola Vs Reggiane Re.2005

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The Ducati 750 Imola Desmo

is a race motorcycle built by Ducati that won the 1972 Imola 200 mile race at the hands of Paul Smart. This win is considered historic by Ducati and its fans in that it helped define Ducati's approach to racing.
On March 20th, 1970, Fabio Taglioni (September 10, 1920 – July 18, 2001) made the first sketches for the layout of a new Ducati V twin. By April his drawings were completed, and by July, there was a running motor. By August 1970, there was a complete prototype motorcycle. Taglioni engaged Leopoldo Tartarini, the founder of Italjet, to refine the styling aspects of the new Ducati. (When these two worked together, a memorable Ducati usually emerged.)



In October 1970, the decision was made by Ducati to re enter motorcycle competition. Director Arnaldo Milvio and General Manager Fredmano Spairani, were enthusiastic about racing, and had encouraged Fabio Taglioni to develop the 750 V twin.
Taglioni experimented with four valve heads at this time, but failed to produce better power figures than his two valve heads, so the two valve racers continued. He continued to experiment with four valve heads right up to 1973. In 1971 race results were spoilt by a run of gearbox and ignition problems. Phil Read's second to Agostini in the San Remo Grand Prix, and a fourth, also by Read, at Monza in the Grand Prix delle Nazione were the highlights of the season.



A Seeley frame 750 cc had been tested by Mike Hailwood at Silverstone in August 1971 with a view to competing in F750. Hailwood decided against it, saying he didn’t think the handling was good enough. Taglioni had already produced a new frame, for the production bike, incorporating some of the Seeley features. He later said he felt the Seeley frame had been too light for the V twins. They used the production frame for the 1972 Imola bikes.
The 200 Mile formula was first run in Italy in 1972, at Imola. Ducati prepared eight 750 cc bikes for the event. Paul Smart, Bruno Spaggiari, Ermanno Giuliano, and Alan Dunscombe were secured as riders. By now racing fever had set in, and the factory wanted to win. The bikes had the new factory frames and 750 engines, and were once more prepared in a very short time. Wherever possible the bike was lightened, and new 40 mm Dell'Orto carburetors with accelerator pumps were used. These engines delivered 80 hp (60 kW) at 8,500 rpm.



The Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario



(English: Archer) was an Italian monoplane fighter/fighter-bomber produced for the Regia Aeronautica during the later years of World War II. Considered by many "the most beautiful plane of second world war" [2] it was, along with the Macchi C.202/C.205 and Fiat G.55, the Re. 2005 was one of the three "Serie 5" Italian fighters built around the famous Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine. Only 48 examples were built. "The Re 2005 was altogether a superb, potent, aeroplane", observed Group Captain Duncan Smith, DSO DFC.



Design and development
The Reggiane 2005 was the last of the Reggiane aircraft line to be built in World War II. The project which started in 1941 was carried out by a team led by Roberto Longhi, and included designers Alessio, Maraschini, Toniolo and Pozzi. Preliminary work was completed before the end of the year despite being a new project, and not simply a revamping of an existing aircraft design such as the Reggiane Re.2002. The DB 605 engine still had to be delivered when the airframe was ready in February 1942.

The resulting machine was not only rated as one of the best Italian wartime aircraft, but also one of the best if not the best-looking. Its semi-elliptical wings, long nose and large tail were all distinctive features of this small, nimble fighter.



The prototype MM.494 first flew 9 May 1942, but the day after, a heavy landing led to an undercarriage failure which caused serious damage, and consequently was unable to fly again until June (MM.494 was damaged two other times in tests). This prototype had four Breda 12.7 mm machine guns and one Mauser cannon and was primarily used for testing, and then for the aerial defense of Naples.
After a fierce competition, in which the C.205N was quickly abandoned, and the G.55 considered marginally better, the Regia Aeronautica ordered the production of 750 Re.2005 aircraft.

A tribute to Angelo Bergamonti

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Bergamonti had started racing in gimkanas in the second half of the fifties and shortly later he moved to road racing. In 1965 he won the Italian Juniores championship and the Italian hillclimb championship riding a Morini 175 cc.




One year later he won again the hillclimb title and in 1967 he became the Italian champion in the 500 cm3 and 250 cm3 classes. He seemed to be on his way to a successful international career when he suffered a terrible accident in Barcelona at the end of the 1967 season.

Angelo Bergamonti & Giacomo Agostini

It took a lot to recover, but he made it and by the end of the 1969 season he was called by MV Agusta to pair Giacomo Agostini in the team. It was racing MVs that he scored his best result, winning the 1970 Grand Prix of Spain in both 350 cm3 and 500 cm3 classes. Bergamonti had great perspectives for the 1971, which he had started with two national wins at the Modena and Rimini meetings, respectively in the 350 cm3 and 500 cm3 races.



Angelo Bergamonti was killed during a race held under heavy rain in a road course using public roads in the Italian city of Riccione.
Bergamonti's accident caused the ban of motorcycle races in street circuits in Italy.

Vacation

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Hi everybody from today untill August 16 i will be in vacation
here : Marrakech,Majorelle Garden
So thank you for your support stay on line and see you in a week
my best, Frank

And there's a fight

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By Eric Johnson

It was Noon on Monday, February 19, 2007 and I was sitting by myself in a booth at the Hooters on International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona International Speedway. I had three hours to kill before my flight was to leave for home for Orange County, California, so there I sat, looking out the front windows and directly at the tri-oval grandstands of Daytona International Speedway. "How in the hell did 200,000 people clear out of this town so quickly?" I said to myself. The night before, while standing on the pit wall with the crew of Boris Said's #60 Ford, I, along with over 200,000 other fans, had watched Kevin Harvick with the Daytona 500 over Mark Martin by .02 seconds.



The closest finish since the first 500 in 1959 (it took three days and a hell of a lot of finish line photographs to figure out Lee Petty had won that one), it was one of the most amazing things I had ever witnessed. (Sterling Marlin's #14 Waste Management Chevrolet sliding upside down on its roof and slamming the wall right next us and Clint Bowyer's Chevrolet - also on its roof and on fire - burning to the ground directly before us made the finish all that more memorable).



Back to Hooters. Trying to decide whether I should order a salad or another beer, I noticed the TV monitors behind the bar broadcasting the finish of the 1979 Daytona 500. The televisions were tuned to the ESPN 2 network and a documentary on the single greatest moment in NASCAR racing history bounced off the satellites and came beaming off those SONY big screens in that beer-soaked Hooters bar.



And that's when the memories came flooding back.

"I'll take another beer," I told the Hooters girl as now I had something to concentrate on (meaning the TV and "The Fight").

The date was Sunday, February 18, 1979 - 28 years TO THE DAY of the Daytona 500 I had witnessed - and for the first time in history, the CBS network was going to televise the race live from flag-to-flag. I was 12 years old at the time and the fact that the Daytona 500 was going to be broadcast live was big god damn deal in the Johnson household. My old man, a sportsman car racer, tuned in CBS while I sat on the floor watching the race while building a model Funny Car. Outside, it was nothing but white. What would later become known as the Presidents Day Snowstorm of 1979, a blizzard
wreaked havoc on the Midwestern and Northeastern sections of the United States, so NASCAR had something of a captive audience. Chris Economaki,David Hobbs and Ken Squire called the race, and CBS trotted out a new invention: The "In-Car" camera.



The first 15 laps of the race were run under the yellow flag due to rain, and on lap number 32, Donnie Allison, Cale Yarbrough and Bobby Allison all spun in the wet, muddy backstretch infield. Yarbrough would fall two laps down (and would eventually get them back) while the Allison brothers shook it all off and kept on chugging.

As fate would have it, the finish of the 1979 Daytona all came down to the 200th and final lap. In his big, hulking #1 Hawaiian Tropic Oldsmobile, Donnie Allison was leading the way back to the finish line. Immediately behind and drafting Allison was Yarbrough and his #11 Busch Beer Oldsmobile.
On the backstretch, Yarbrough attempted a slingshot pass on Allison.



"Donnie had a great car," reflected Yarbrough through the Hooters TV. "But I passed him twice on the backstretch when cautions came out to get laps back. I knew at the end I could do it again."

Allison refused to let Cale by him a third time and blocked the burly Oldsmobile so aggressively, that while door to door, Yarbrough's left tires touched the wet infield grass. Cale's big blue and white Oldsmobile lost traction and clouted Allison's car. Desperately trying to get their cars straightened out, it was a Detroit Symphony of crushing metal and roaring V8s and the two machines bashed and popped off of one another three more
times. It all ended up against the wall in turn three, the two cars locked together, sliding down the 31-degree banking and coming to a stop in the muddy infield, a smoking heap hissing with burnt oil and boiled fluids.


Richard Petty would flash by to win the race.

"Richard Petty has just won his sixth Daytona 500 and the crowd here is going absolutely mad!"

Meanwhile, Allison and Yarbrough scrambled to get out of their wounded automobiles. Upon doing so, and with steam coming out of their ears, they began to bitch at one another. Bobby Allison, seeing his brother squaring off with Yarbrough, swung his Ford down into the infield to see just what was up.



"I was trying to talk to Donnie when Cale started hollering at me," Bobbie explained. "Then he hit me in the face with his helmet."

"It was the lightweight championship of the world after that," mused Donnie.

Race announcer Ken Squire: "AND THERE'S A FIGHT BETWEEN DONNIE ALLISON AND CALE YARBROUGH. TEMPERES OVERFLOWING THEY ARE ANGRY BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY HAVE LOST!"



With a national TV audience numbered in the millions watching on, kicking, punching and swearing a blue streak, the trio wrestled in the slop.

Back in Ohio, my dad was standing and talking to the TV set, "Holy shit!" he said. "Look at this!"



Myself, aged 10 and all, was in complete awe. This wasn't a TV sitcom or a cartoon or a made-for-TV movie, this was car racing and a bunch of dudes that wanted to win so badly they had completely lost their minds.

In the heat of the moment - and in the days that followed - Cale Yarbrough found the whole knuckle swinging, club wielding affair ridiculous. "It's the worst thing I've ever seen in racing," he would say in the newspapers that next week.

However, and as with most things, once a little time goers by, a person can see things an entirely different way. "I think it made a lot of fans," Yarbrough said 28 years later. "People looked at that and said, 'These boys are real people and they do real things.' Looking back now, I think it's one of the biggest things that ever happened in the sport. It got people's attention."

It certainly got mine. It was something I had never forgotten and to be sitting in front of Daytona International Speedway the day after the 2007 Daytona 500 and being reminded of it all brought a smile to my face.

I ordered another beer and watched on as ESPN 2 re-ran the documentary.