History or Histrionics?

History; noun; the study of the past. Motorcycle racing is exciting and widely watched around the world; it creates heroes and celebrities. Many of us wait impatiently for the next race meeting so that we can be on the edge of our chair at home glued to the TV or better still, as spectators live at the track.

The familiar sound of our favourite bikes, the skill and daring of the outstanding riders, the heart in the mouth near misses, the winners, the losers, the riders that impress but never win, the excitement, the disappointments and the bikes themselves. With every race a new piece of history is written, the bikes, the riders, the race results, every new event adds to our history; the “what ifs” and “if only” of the days racing can become legend and the topics of conversation for years. But what if we could rerun “that” race? Would that be “fair” or even “fair dinkum”? We cannot actually change history so why would we even attempt to re run events? We can certainly bask in the glory and euphoria of the event; but we can’t run it all over again! What we can do though, is race the bikes from the past so we can have an idea what it may have been like to have been there “that” day; we can have historic “demonstration” races. These historic races won’t change history, they are not important (you do not become famous for winning an historic race). Historic racing is good fun racing/demonstrating well known and not so well known machines. At historic meetings we might be lucky enough to see and hear a famous rider on a famous bike to bring back memories from past glories. None of this is going to change history or create important new history: it is just nostalgia, reliving the past! Why do some people believe that we need annual Historic Road Race Championships? Championships for machines of every class and period ever raced, in a crowded program of four lap events? What do they achieve? The races do not represent the races that made history in the past! The machines are now so upgraded that their performance is out of character with the odd original machine that might turn up. The MA rules are effectively a “silhouette” formula, which discourages genuine machines that are still “original as raced” from competing at all.

Histrionics; noun; actors pertaining to the stage. Lots of short races for all sorts of old bikes at an historic race meeting is good fun and entertaining motor sport! Annual Road Racing Championships for Historic Motorcycles are at best an oxymoron, and at worst see truly historic machines modified in the pursuit of meaningless modern trophies to prop up some misplaced egos. Rob Rowe Mount Hutton, NSW You’re a mind reader Rob. See this issue’s editorial. – Ed On closer inspection it appeared to have ripped out all the carbon on the surface and destroyed the cast iron to a depth of about 1.5 mm. As spares are not thick on the ground for these bikes I had to rework valve seats and ports in the head. The barrel was resleeved and all the mating surfaces re-machined. I then had to manufacture appropriate spacers to get back to standard. I also tried an old broken Amal carby which it started to eat alive! I would suggest “steel only” as the best approach with molasses. Bruce Colwell Via email