yeah it was had to live back at me mum & dads for 6 weeks until I had a new gaff// strangely I lived under thatch from then until coming over to Canada last year. worst thing is losing all the personal stuff that even if I was insured , you would not have been able to replace.... correspondence with the ' famous' from various walks of life, love letters from ex girlfriends etc . but you have to move on... again sorry for off topic

Looking at those two pictures, one can only imagine the enormous heat generated by a fire like that. It melted every drop of snow.

Lordy, I just hope Julian shares our perverted sense of humor.

I'm sure he can those who give must take I wonder what his favorite record is ????
Fire Brigade by The Move
Fire by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Light My Fire by The Doors
Somethings Burning by Kenny Rodgers
++ many , many more --over to you

I was going to say exactly the same thing.................but i thought i would be more sensitive

Ahhhhh,

Reading this thread has just reminded me. Peter Scott still has 2 of my old Yamaha TA125 GP Bikes across in melbourne.

He got Alan Bradshaw to tune one of them to run on Methanol, and the other was a rolling set of spares for the good one.

Unfortunately he broke the crank on both of them.

I'll have to find his number and give him a call....

For bloody years now I have tried to find replacements, but to no avail. Can't seem to find pistons either.

Bugger,

John

course I do but bless you jeff, if you cant have a laugh about it 13.5 years on youd have to be living a pretty sad life.. I was going to say worse things happen at sea, but then there is plenty of water1

Stu Avant.......

Didn't I used to buy Yokahama Slicks for my 125cc GP bike off of you in the 90s sometime? Cheaper than Bridgestones or Dunlops by a country mile too.

I was just too slow to give them a complete work out. Still I had my arse kicked by the best. I'm not ashamed of that.

Out Bankstown way I think your tyre place was at.

Regards,

John

CR*P IMO
was he the filly sucker who came on stage at TOTP's with a paint tin full of petrol on his head and then set light to it ?
this was what I 1st thought of:wink:
dont know?????? that but wasnt he the bloke that sand the beggees song with Dolly Parton small but big if you know what I mean :yawn:
just thought of another one... The Prodigy - Firestarter

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TZ350
[B] CR*P IMO
was he the filly sucker who came on stage at TOTP's with a paint tin full of petrol on his head and then set light to it ?
this was what I 1st thought of:wink:
Oh come Roy Wood --wonderful got more hair than you
And yes Arthur Brown he did just that what a cupid stunt that was

Doesn't this guy look suspicously like a certain Julian that we know, without his leathers?

Going back a few weeks with a reply to this one Mark... been checking my old photos, and the best I could come up with on my old bikes was a pink sticker! :\ .. must have been a boring bugger then too.

Acid worm, was that what they were called?.....horrendous things!!!!

Photo Copyrighted to Graham Etheridge, racebikepics.

Foggy's last year of relative poverty!

You probably did..Yokohama brought a stack off tyres out to test in Oz and Graham Temple ( who is often spotted in old pics on this forum ) and Peter Ingley were involved. Both were old mates and somewhere along the line I got to store and eventually own a bunch ( 500 plus!) of Yoko's. They were a pain in this arse and eventually I dumped them at the tip..seemed a waste but Ive wasted better things

Like Marco Lucchenelli hey Stu!!

Thats true Nigel, a couple of weeks later he won his first WSB race at Donington...the rest is history.

Morning Graham, have you got any pics of Foggy on Dave Orton's (Appleby Glade) 250 Honda? would have been 1986 I think.

Hi Nigel, nothing really good, only in group shots, and they need re-scanning, but I will do it/them later (got to go to work now!! :\ )

OK, catch you later.

But for a poor bugger like me those Yokohamas were a godsend. Even the soft compounds were more like the medium compound dunlops.

The Wets were brilliant though. I used to pray for rain. It brought back the faster guys back to my pace.

I agree, Pete was no mug and went on to work with Pirelli etc. He was in theory the man who's name is on the patent for radial race tyres at Dunlop. I think they were a bit off everything that Pete had worked with. Sold a few wets for dirt trackers as well..

I used to get a whole round of the Arrc from a set, plus practice for the next round. Qualifing and racing was done on a new set each time. No tyre warmers though. could not afford them.


Andy Duke, and Jason Couzens, and sometimes good Ol Trevor Manley used to use at least two sets of tyres to my one.

Except at Wannaroo. That place was so abrasive that it used to chew up my tyres in no time.

Now you mention it Nigel , perhaps he was practicing that night Bet you don't see them in a room at the same time

Couple here - '88 I think, 'cos he's in the same pyjamas and the RC30 came out in '88 IIRC


RS250 at Thruxton


RC30 at Donington (WSB?)


Paul M

MOST SUCCESSFUL RACING MECHANICS

Who are the most successful motorcycle race mechanics of all time?

This is something I've been pre-occupied with for a while.

How do you measure best? Well, let me see...

1. How man wins 'their' rider gained
2. How many podiums 'their' rider gained
3. How many GP/MotoGP points 'their' rider scored
4. How many World Championships 'their' rider won

Here is my shortlist for this accolade (in alphabetic order)...

Michihiko Aika (Honda)
Peter Aldridge
Jerry Burgess
Kel Carruthers
Nobby Clark
Erv Kanemoto
Arturo Magni (MV)
Tadaomi 'Taddy' Matsui (Suzuki)
Mamoru Moriwaki
Stuart Shenton
Mike Sinclair
Trevor Tilbury
George Vukmanovich
Hideo 'Pops' Yoshimura

There will be many more.

My feeling is that Arturo Magni easily tops the list but how hands-on was he in his later career? Was he just a figurehead?

Even so my starter for ten (at least in the premier class) would be:

1. Magni
2. Burgess
3. Clark

What are your expert views?

Sergio

Who are the most successful motorcycle race mechanics of all time?

very difficult to say....

mechanic? or race engineer?

spannerman can be brilliant but the rider and his form is beyond the mechanics control

Perhaps Peter Aldridge might let us know his thoughts, as he is to be found on here from time to time!

Hi Gang Great news !!! Team Schirtfinkle goes from strength to strength It has just been formally announced from head of PR Betty Swallocks that Schirtfinkle has taken over their Italian rivals the mighty and highly overrated Panini factory . Panini directors Stu Pidass and Donnatella Noboddi are said to be ' very pleased '

More to follow...........

Sneak preview of Team Schirtfinkle/ Panini 2009 race transporters --and what an impressive sight they make lined up ready for the season ahead

I´m not going to research this (I´ll leave that up to the more knowledgeable on here), but I would hazard a guess that Nobby won world championships with a greater number of riders than any of the others you mentioned. Burgess has "only" won with mighty Mick and Rossi, whereas Nobby won with Jim Redman, Mike Hailwood, Kenny Roberts and Eddie Lawson.
Corrections to that, as well as any additions, would be appreciated.

Burgess also won with Wayne Gardner, but that'd only add about 18 to his list. This came up on another forum, but I'd reckon Nobby would be the clubhouse leader. I once asked Jim Redman why he thought Nobby was such a good mechanic, he said Nobby wasn't a trained mechanic at all, had worked for Rhodesian Railways and came to Europe in the Gary Hocking era and blagged his way in as a helper and gopher to wangle his way round Europe. When Gary went to MVs he started helping Jim Redman and others. He sort of grew on the Japanese mechanics because he was always around, learnt some Japanese to get along, and agreed to go to Japan for some factory tuition as a means of getting to the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, the rest we know. So, he did an incredible amount for a non-mechanic !

At a time when GPs had lots of privateer rider/entrants, there were loads of really good mechanics who, because they didn't work in a 'big' team and therefore had to work on smaller budgets and with lesser equipment, didn't perhaps always get the recognition they deserved. One such was Vince French, sometime mechanic for 'Tepi' Lansivuori and Johnny Cecotto, and latterly Champion Spark Plug's main man in the UK.

Yep good point, here he is in 1976? helping Tom Herron

Photo Copyrighted to Graham Etheridge, racebikepics.

Looks like Fred Clarke lurking :\

Great pic of a great bloke! I think it must have been about '76....certainly after he recorded 'Clair' and 'Get Down'.....

Yes certainly after ' Nothing Rymed ' and ' Wackerday'

IIRC Vince French was a Yamaha works mechanic for Jarno Saarinen in '72-73??

Please feel free to correct as necessary

ATB.

Mick.

Weren't the team mechanics called Ayeneyda Pizakvik and Malexa Kroest ??

ATB.

Mick.

Pretty sure that's correct - and I suppose what I was trying to say was that, here was a guy who worked 'quietly' in the background for a lot of really class riders but, outside of a close circle, didn't perhaps get the recognition that a modern day top-wrench like, say, Jerry Burgess gets.

As straight out tuners, not so much crew chiefs, how about Harald Bartol and Warren Willing. FYI Warren Willing is the cover feature of the December issue of Classic Racer.

Ok, here´s the question.
What is the difference between a mechanic and an engineer?
Seriously, why didn´t the engineer exist in our time, or if they did, where were they hiding? And are these guys really qualified mechanical engineers, or is it a modern term for a mechanic/machinist/self taught tuner etc?
Now, Harold Bartol, as far as I know, is a self taught mechanic, tuner, engineer, and never studied mechanical engineering. I could be wrong, but that´s what I´ve always thought, and he´s one of the real engineers in the paddock, having designed and built several GP winning machines.
Someone on here once said they knew Harold´s old spanner man, Allister (god, his surname slips me ATM). I´m sure he would know Harold´s qualifications. Would be interesting to know.

This could go on forever...there is a distinct difference between the eras. Vince French is a mate of mine and a mechanic for me ( well appreciated ) but if Warren Willing showed him 3D data on a bank of computers he would scratch his head. Mike Sinclair built a fuel tank from a concertina tool box in the dirt of the pits in 1976 so that I had a 4 litre xtra tank in my seat for the Austrian GP in 1976..he is a genuis. Jeremy Burgess has the ability to put all the ducks in a line..sort the shit and get a result, no one does it better.

Nobby didnt need to do that, but.....he needed to get the team on the track and be competitive, time after time. These guys were not as technicaly sharp ( they wouldnt disagree) but there duties were different. more varied, less technical, but no less demanding.

I think the term Race Engineer is probably more a term applied to show the higher Status/responsibility within a squad...not really based on a formal qualification.

After all most of these characters have been too busy working "hands on" gaining real knowledge rather than off to University to gain formal qualification

Warren Willing has "the brain the size of a planet" ,but i don't ever recall the mention of a formal qualification in Engineering

didn't Jerry Burgess work for Erv Kanemoto originally?...so who would claim the credit for race wins in that scenario?

One guy who spings to my mind is Steve Blackburn . Started his career in Neil Tuxworths Honda dealership in Louth . When Neil closed his Shop Steve worked for Donny Roginson then Gustav Reiner then onto Kenny Roberts teamfor several yeasr Before rounding out his 22year GP career as engine builder for the works Honda team. He then returned to the UK scene and has been engine builder for the HM Plant team back in Louth . You can find some excellent piccies on his facebook page !

I think thats correct Mick They worked under the infamous tuner Jack Mehoff IIRC

Don't know if any of you may be interested but I have seen some early 60's prog's from Brands & Snet for sale on e-bay. Sorry, but I don't know how to insert a link to them but the sellers tag is gazza278.
They all finish Sunday.
Dave

hTH http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...0All%20Feedback
& all pre 65, http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/gazza278_W0Q...QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ hth