NZ Norton Run
27-28 February, 2021 – Ruapuna Park Raceway, Christchurch NZ
The BEARS (British, European, American Racing) scene started off in New Zealand at the bottom of the world in 1983 by a group of enthusiastic Christchurch motorcycle riders, who felt they didn’t fit the race classes available at the time for their British-built Triumph, Norton or BSA bikes. The BEARS Sound of Thunder event has been held annually ever since at Ruapuna Park Raceway, over the last weekend of February, with competitors from around the country. This year, our Prime Minister declared late on Saturday night that the country would change COVID 19 alert levels at dawn on Sunday morning for a period of seven days.
This put a huge spanner in the works for continuing to run the event on Sunday, but with help from Motorcycling NZ and Canterbury Police, the club committee managed to keep it running putting the riders and pit crew in their own bubble, along with three separate bubbles for spectators.
A heavy Police presence ensured people were all playing their part. Our Canterbury Norton club representative Jim Stevens luckily still managed to put a tent and BBQ up for club members on Sunday to watch the various race categories. Sadly, access to the pit lane was off limits due to the COVID restrictions, which is normally always a highlight, to get up close to the competitors. On the flip side, racing could continue on Sunday, due to the mighty efforts of the organizers. Naturally, of particular interest were seeing the many Norton race competitors from around the country and locally. Norton 755 competitor Lew Grant sat out the racing on Sunday to help manage crowd control to make sure the Level 2 requirements were met, in order for the meeting to continue. In terms of club members at Sunday’s racing, we had Damian Muir on his Donington-built 961 (the last one sold in OZ), Allan Rogers on his 1956 ES2, Brent Mathews on his 1966 650SS, Jeremy Matthews on his 850 MK1 with an Aussie-built head, Alister Mears on his red 750S and Jim Lynch on his 1955 ES2.