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SPA!1974 S
#184
www.classicracer.com where legends live on...
TOHE T
PS ME O P FA M F O FRO LL A H
Match Races Part 3: Grudges and greats | Peter B Brown: Fl Flying i on three | End of an Era’s era | The Classic TT gets even more serious | Paddock Gossip | And all the regulars...
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WHAT’SINSIDE 006 From the Classic Racer archive Did you know that you can buy any image from our archive for your own use? Classic Racer has tens of thousands of some of the greatest pictures ever taken. Here’s one that we like in particular.
008 Paddock Gossip Everything that's worth knowing from the various recesses and whispered conversations in the paddock. Courtesy of the world's most experienced race reporter and inside-man.
016 Readers Write The competitive timesheet of effort is laid down before the stopwatch of fate as a challenge to our ‘Well-Travelled’ letter of last month is served. This is not going to end anytime soon.
018 Subscribe to Classic Racer Save yourself some money, get yourself a deal and free yourself from the need to step outside of your door to get every issue of this magazine to you. Direct.
022 Kim Newcombe’s Konig 500 An iconic motorcycle in nearly every sense of the phrase. An outboard two-stroke motor and a very talented rider at the controls gave birth to a combination that, together, was the first to challenge the mighty MV Agustas of the time.
030 Wes Cooley From starting out in the club his father ran to the AMA title to the 8-Hour at Suzuka, Wester Steven Cooley was on a path littered with greatness. And then 1985 at Sears Point happened and his life would never be the same again. This is Wes’ story.
040 Peter Brown Trials, sidecars, engineering or submarines! Many things with many engines make appearances amidst the story of one of the most natural all-rounders to take up the competitive mantle. Peter Brown’s story is one that every motorcycle race fan should know.
050 Charlie Williams’ Maxton TZ385 It seems crazy these days that motorcycles like this were broken up for parts and sent to the four corners of the globe to end up as parts in various other bikes – but that is what happened. However, when a particular motorcycle manages to do so many varied things during its life there is always one person who might just be able to pull it all back together again.
060 Back in the Day: The 1974 Spa Grand Prix Jan Burgers takes us back to a time when the race dealt up many surprises at one of the most punishing circuits then raced upon. Retirements and crashes littered the end result but it was here where we became aware of where the year's events where heading.
066 The Match Races: Part 3 Into and through the second half of the 1970s saw the Transatlantic Trophy act as a proving ground for many riders coming up and going down the ranks. Step forward one in particular who shone – Kenneth Leroy Roberts.
076 Phillip Island Classic Our man Hamish Cooper is on site to report back on everything that happened from the first big meeting of the year amidst great older bikes and not-quite-so-old riders.
MAR/APR2017 ISSUE184 EDITOR Tony Carter tcarter@mortons.co.uk
SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Paul Deacon
PUBLISHER Tim Hartley thartley@mortons.co.uk
CIRCULATION MANAGER Steven O’Hara
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE Malcolm Wheeler, Alan Cathcart, Hamish Copper, Norm de Witt,Terry Stevenson, Peter Crawford, Jan Burgers, Bruce Cox, Graham Lawlwer, Russ Lee, Len Hartley
MARKETING MANAGER Charlotte Park
PRODUCTION EDITORS Sarah Wilkinson Sarah Palmer SENIOR DESIGNER Kelvin Clements DESIGNERS Michael Baumber Libby Fincham PICTURE DESK Paul Fincham Jonathan Schofield DIVISIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER Sue Keily ADVERTISING Leon Currie 01507 529413 lcurrie@mortons.co.uk
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Dan Savage COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Nigel Hole EDITORIAL ADDRESS Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR UK WEBSITE www.classicracer.com GENERAL QUERIES AND BACK ISSUES 01507 529529 24hr answerphone help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk ARCHIVE ENQUIRIES Jane Skayman 01507 529423 jskayman@mortons.co.uk
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CLASSIC RACER (USPS:706-150) is published bi-monthly by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ UK. USA subscriptions are $30 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Bancroft, WI and additional entries. Postmaster: Send address changes to CLASSIC RACER, c/o Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. 715-572-4595 chris@ classicbikebooks.com Printed by William Gibbons & Sons, Wolverhampton ISSN No 1470-4463 © Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
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PaddockGossip >> The latest straight from the paddock >>
Bayliss tops the bill
World Superbike legend Troy Bayliss is to make the journey from his homeland, Australia, to be the guest of honour at the Carol Nash Classic MotorCycle Show at Stafford over the weekend of April 22-23. Although a late starter to the sport by today’s standards,Troy quickly showed his potential by winning his first race aboard a Kawasaki ZXR750. Contesting the Australian Supersport and Superbike Championships Troy first came to be noticed during a wildcard ride in the 1997 Australian 250 Grand Prix riding for a Dutch Suzuki team, when he finished a great sixth after having held third place in the race. As a result Bayliss joined GSE Ducati to race in BSB in the UK. In a season beset by crashes and mechanical breakdowns, his first
win came at the toughest track in the calendar, Cadwell Park.The following year he won the series for the team. Bayliss started the following season by racing in the USA Superbike series but he was called up by the official Ducati team to replace the injured Carl Fogarty who, ironically, is the only rider in
2017 FIM EUROPE VINTAGE ROAD RACE CALENDAR The dates for the 2017 FIM Europe Vintage (Classic) Championship have been released. All venues this year are at former Grand Prix circuits. There will be two races at each round, with all races to count for the Championship. Round 1 Rijeka (Croatia) June 30 – July 2 Round 2 Anderstorp (Sweden) July 21-23 Round 3 Donington Park (UK) August 4-6.
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The classes in the 2017 FIM Europe Vintage (Classic) Championship are; 50cc, 200cc, 250cc, 350cc, 500cc, 750cc, F/Era 350cc, F/Era 1300cc, 750cc Sidecars and 1300cc Sidecars. Entry forms and supplementary regulations will be available shortly on the FIME and CRMC websites: www.fim-europe.com/ vintage/#14800658730485e097d6b-1301 www.crmc.co.uk/library/
WSB history to amass more wins than Bayliss. From 2001 Bayliss was a full-time member of the factory Ducati team and won the championship for them. He just failed to win the title, beaten by Colin Edwards the following year. After an unsuccessful period in MotoGP Bayliss returned to WSB in 2006 and the Ducati team, with
whom he took the title once again, and in 2008 he clinched the title once more. Troy will be on stage on both days at the show, sharing stories of his glittering career, and also in the Classic Racer Grand Prix Paddock, were it is hoped there will be some noisy Ducati race bikes to keep him company.
Irish racing scene dates By Mark McCloskey The 2017 classic racing fixtures for Irish Road Racing have been announced, with eight rounds confirmed: April 21-22, Tandragee 100, Co. Armagh, N.I; April 28-29, Cookstown 100, Co. Tyrone, N.I; June 17-18, Kells Road Races, Co. Meath, ROI; (TBC), June 30-July 1, Skerries 100, Co. Dublin, ROI; July 8-9, Walderstown, Co Westmeath, ROI; July 22-23, Faugheen Road Races, Co Waterford, ROI; July 28-29, Armoy Road Races, Co. Antrim, N.I; August 26-27, Classic Bike Live Mondello Park,
Co. Kildare ROI; September 9-10, Killalane Road Races, Co. Dublin, ROI (TBC) and September 23-24, Spirit of Dunboyne, Co. Meath, ROI. 2017 sees a significant hike in the cost of obtaining insurance to cover road races. At €30,000+ per event, it falls to the individual clubs to raise the monies that are necessary to cover this essential cost and most of this is done through sponsorship, admission fees and through the sale of racing programmes. Never has the support and generosity been needed more.
DONINGTON TAKEOVER MotorSport Vision (MSV) has reached agreement with Kevin Wheatcroft, owner and operator of Donington Park, for MSV to take over the Donington Park circuit business and to lease the Donington Park Estate for an initial 21-year term. MSV, owned by former F1 driver Jonathan Palmer and Sir Peter Ogden, already owns and operates four UK race circuits – Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Snetterton and Cadwell Park, plus Bedford Autodrome. In addition MSV expanded into Europe in 2015 following the freehold purchase of a
former military airbase in France, which is currently developing into a large motorsport village. MSV also holds the promotional rights for the MCE British Superbike Championship and the BRDC British F3 Championship. MSV Chief Executive Jonathan Palmer said: “I am thrilled that MSV has now acquired the Donington circuit business. Its modern day existence is purely down to the vision and energy ofTom Wheatcroft, whom I admired enormously. Donington is a good British circuit that
Welcome
deserves further investment, energy and expertise in order to make it truly outstanding, and MSV will provide this.” Kevin Wheatcroft, Donington Park’s owner, said: “I am particularly pleased to have finally done a deal with MSV’s Jonathan Palmer in what is our 40th year since my father reopened the circuit in 1977. “Since taking the circuit back under my own control in 2009, huge efforts have been made to bring Donington back to the forefront of British motorsport, not to mention the many millions it’s taken to do so.”
CRMC NEWS
Donington Classic Festival Simon Crafar will be a special guest at the fifth running of the Donington Classic Festival, which takes place over the weekend of August 4-6 and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the circuit reopening in 1977. Simon has had soft spot for Donington ever since winning the 500cc Grand Prix there back in 1998. Riders who were at the first meeting back in 1977 are being invited to join the celebrations, and first to get in touch was Stan Woods, who won the 500cc race at the first meeting. Stan has offered to present the beautiful trophy he won in 1977 to the winner of this year’s 500 race
and he will be out on track himself in the parades. The feature race and highlight of the weekend will be the Wheatcroft Trophy race, which is sponsored by Classic Racer, and is open to any CRMC-registered machine. Making the trip from Germany to race at the Donington Classic Festival are around seven German
enthusiasts who have rarely seen Simson AWO 425 race machines from the 1950s. The group have a mixture of 250cc and 350cc variants, all single cylinder shaft drive machines including one with a full dustbin fairing. Donington Park has secured the 1976 and 1977 Barry Sheene Championship winning bikes to attend the Festival in August.
CRMC ELIGIBILITY NEWS The CRMC club race requirement that four cylinder 500cc Classic Honda machines must have a
drum front brake has been dropped. Any period disc brake can be used as per all other machines in the 500cc
Clubman class. The drum brake requirement for all ACU Classic 500cc Championship machines remains in place.
Hello and welcome to this month’s Classic Racer. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. As my long-time friend, mentor and fellow paddock-gossip sharer Malc explained in the last issue of this fine racing publication, I am now in the hot seat. As such, these types of welcoming columns from new editors tend to be pretty much the same type of thing from whoever takes over the role. So let’s get that out of the way quickly, so that we can all just get on with what we love so much – racing! Firstly, I can’t thank Malc and the folk at Mortons enough for putting me into this chair. Classic Racer is a magazine that I’ve had for years amid my ‘essential’ reading list. I love racing, I love the history of our sport and I love CR.Thanks Malc, I won’t crash it at the first corner. Promise. Secondly, thank you for picking the magazine up and looking at it under my first time at the helm. I value you, the CR reader, above everything.You are the most important aspect of Classic Racer and you always will be.That is the simple truth. I am keeping the magazine the same (nothing here is broke... to use an old race saying) so please don’t panic on that score. Classic Racer will continue to be the best place to go for the greats of the track. Thirdly, Malc is not gone. Not by a long shot. He’s going to continue to be a strong part of Classic Racer. Although the chief might now be relaxing and enjoying more time maintaining the Ducati, he’s still contributing to CR and will continue to be at many events and meetings too. I couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) do this job without my old mate’s mind to spar with about all matters racing. Finally, please feel free to get in touch with anything you want to see on these pages. I’d really appreciate hearing from you about what you’d like to see in CR and what areas or periods in racing you want to know more about. Have a great time this year and let’s all be quick and safe. And if we’re not riding, let’s enjoy some great racing memories and current action with good friends. Very best wishes, TC Tony Carter
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CLASSIC RACER WORLD CHANGING
Like something from a Hollywood blockbuster, what a guy from New Zealand managed to make went out on track and stunned the racing world. This is the story of that motorcycle. Words by:Terry Stevenson Photos by:The Newcombe family, RodTingate, Patrick Stevenson,Terry Stevenson
I
f you wrote this as a fictional story for the big screen now, people would probably say it was too far-fetched a raving fable. But this was as real as it gets. In the early 1970s Kim Newcombe developed a 500cc outboard engine inside a self-designed frame. Working in a small workshop in Germany and against the odds, the Kiwi's plan worked. And won a 500cc Grand Prix. Newcombe was an incredibly talented New Zealander. Already an accomplished motocross rider in NZ and Australia, he landed a job in Berlin with the Konig outboard engine factory in 1969, and found that a local had unsuccessfully tried to fit a Konig 500cc motor into a Manx Norton frame. He took up the engineering challenge and then had to learn to road race to develop the Konig 500 himself. His riding experience and engineering work developed in parallel to the point where Newcombe stood on the World 500cc podium on two occasions in 1972. The Konig factory sold a number of examples in kit form to privateers. By the 1973 season the Konig 500 was more reliable and faster in a straight line than the factory MV Agustas of the great Giacomo Agostini and Phil Read. At one point during 1973 Newcombe actually lead the world 500cc championship! Newcombe and his low-budget effort split the MV Agusta team by the season’s end to finish second in the championship to Phil Read, and ahead of Agostini.
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CLA LASSIC A RA RACER A PEOPLE not, I am very grateful for what I was able to achieve in my motorcycle days.” Steve McLaughlin: “Wester was and is a very nice and straight person whose empathy is so great he has lots and lots of fans… deservedly so and it good to see him back.” Wes: “There’s only one thing you leave when you die, and that’s your reputation, and hopefully I’m doing alright at that.”
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Below: Wes Cooley at Mid-Ohio 2016 – photo courtesy Larry Lawrence
CLA LASSIC A RA RACER A PEOPLE
PETER BROWN BSA’s backroom boy
Cascades, Oulton Park, 1966. Peter leads Norman Hanks. Note the extended screen and committed eyes from the white BSA boys!
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Pictures by: Peter Crawford
British Sidecar Champion in 1968 he may have been, but it was bad luck and worse timing that robbed Peter Brown of the greater success he undoubtedly deserved. Pete Crawford spoke to the man himself and discovered the ins and outs while discussing life at BSA, passenger-ing for a U-boat cook and winning the TT.
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ctually I was educated at the same school as Doug Hele, which was Kings Norton Grammar and I thought the war was bloody wonderful. We all did. We lived on a hillock looking down to Bourneville, where Cadbury was, and one day a twin engine bomber, most probably a Heinkel 111, came across level with our house dropping bombs closely followed by what I suspect was a Hurricane, which shot it down. “I had a cousin who fought in Hurricane squadron 501. Squadron Leader Kenneth Lee. He was my hero and I was going to be a fighter pilot you see, but as I grew older I realised they were never going to have me, and that was a turning point. It was a case of: ‘I can’t be a fighter pilot so just what can I be?’” It was a trip to the 1949 TT, paid for by his mother on the understanding that he passed his school certificate, which changed everything. The likes of Ernie Lyons, Johnny Lockett and Freddie Frith in full flight left a profound impression. Careers advice was against it but two years in a local engineering apprenticeship and night school led to work at Copes of Bearwood, County Cycles and PJ Evans working on parts for Bentleys, among others. Ultimately it secured a place at Ariel’s. “I worked under Len Moss, in the service department and served my time with various fitters, ending up with the guy who did the square fours, Sammy Peter. He was meticulous and a stickler for discipline, which was very good learning for me. I got to working on my own and filling in here and there and I’d started scrambling and trials, as one could purchase bits at very reasonable prices. Actually the prices were ridiculous! “Len had a mate in East Anglia, a big Ariel agent, and I got the job of at least once a year having this chap’s son’s engines, stripping them completely, giving them a bit of a tweak. I probably had a go at the cylinder heads and generally made a half decent job of building them. Then they used to go into the competition shop to be brake tested. “Now, in the competition shop the boss was Ernie Smith, who was a frightening personality, but working for him was a bloke called Clive Bennett. All the Bennett brothers were mixed up with Ernie Earles, but that was how I got to know him initially, at Ariel’s. I never heard anything back on those engines, but that was the attitude then, no one ever told you if you’d done a good job.” But he obviously had and Clive Bennett’s awareness was to prove useful in the future. In the short term however a ‘busting’ row with Len Moss saw a departure from Ariel’s and spells at Birmingham dealers Colmore Depot and as Midland Area Representative for Isetta bubble cars – an episode that could fill a book in itself. This first flirtation with three wheels was cut short by an opportunity at BSA, which looked too good to be true, and nearly was.
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CLASSIC RACER TEST
TT podiums, 50 0GP world cham pionships and a The Dugdale Max host of other du ton Yamaha TZ38 ties. 5 that served un Williams was fa der Charlie r more than a on e-trick pony.
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Words: Alan Cathcart Photos: Chris de Vine
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CLASSIC RACER BACK IN THE DAY
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Words: Bruce Cox Pictures: Mortons Archives and Bruce Cox Collection
The performances of Cal Rayborn and Yvon Duhamel, when they shared top individual Transatlantic Trophy Series honours with British riders in 1972 and 1973, had already shown fans in the UK that America could produce road racers who could run with the best. But no one on either side of the Atlantic could have predicted what was to happen in the 10 years from 1974 onwards. The decade of the superstars was about to arrive.
There’s a special Classic Racer prize up for grabs for the first correct letter or email we receive that correctly identifies every rider on this grid. It’s not as easy as you might think with a first glance... Malcolm is the final judge on who arrives first, just so you know.
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