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Sparky Special


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#1 Doug Nye

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Posted 28 May 2022 - 13:18

It's strange how thought processes develop within a fevered mind.  

 

Just watching the bicycle-racing Giro d'Italia Stage 20 labouring around the Dolomites, when mind wandered onto the early-'50s Coppa d'Oro delle Dolomiti road race for cars using several of the same or similar roads - Porsche 356s running there - Otto Mahé one of the drivers - thinks, I wonder how the celebrated one-armed driver lost the use of his arm, look it up, oh motor-cycle accident c.1934, and then...hey, fascinating Mathé Porsche special - the Austrian's Fetzenflieger, his tremendously successful ice-racing 'sparking flyer'...  And here it is.

 

Screenshot-2022-05-28-at-14-09-21.png

 

Now, back to the treaders, then Monaco qualifying - yes, another exhausting Saturday...   :smoking:

 

DCN


Edited by Doug Nye, 28 May 2022 - 13:21.


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#2 sabrejet

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Posted 28 May 2022 - 13:50

Wow those are savage-looking tyres!



#3 Michael Ferner

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Posted 28 May 2022 - 16:08

Good ole' Continental Snow & Ice model "Corona Virus"...



#4 doc knutsen

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Posted 29 May 2022 - 09:55

Wow those are savage-looking tyres!

Standard use on cars AND motorcycles doing ice-racing in the Fifties and Sixties. Inch-long sharp cones that were bolted through the thread of the tyre from the inside. The grip from such wheels on frozen lakes was simply amazing. But you would want to stay well clear of your racing motorcycle if you came off it in the heat of the battle..Norwegian ace motorcylist and racing driver Basse Hveem went off on one notable occasion and hit the protective snow bank on the outside of the track..

But the snow bank had frozen to ice after a period of thaw, followed by freezing temperatures the night before the race. Not only did he slide into the bank, but his bike followed and thumped him severely in the abdomen. It was enough to cost him a kidney and lacerated his liver, but he survived to race again for many years. However, had the spiked wheels hit him (the Jap engine was still running) the result would have been even more severe.


Edited by doc knutsen, 29 May 2022 - 09:56.


#5 Michael Ferner

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Posted 29 May 2022 - 13:31

That's uncle-turning-into-auntie potential... :(



#6 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 31 May 2022 - 04:06

Standard use on cars AND motorcycles doing ice-racing in the Fifties and Sixties. Inch-long sharp cones that were bolted through the thread of the tyre from the inside. The grip from such wheels on frozen lakes was simply amazing. But you would want to stay well clear of your racing motorcycle if you came off it in the heat of the battle..Norwegian ace motorcylist and racing driver Basse Hveem went off on one notable occasion and hit the protective snow bank on the outside of the track..

But the snow bank had frozen to ice after a period of thaw, followed by freezing temperatures the night before the race. Not only did he slide into the bank, but his bike followed and thumped him severely in the abdomen. It was enough to cost him a kidney and lacerated his liver, but he survived to race again for many years. However, had the spiked wheels hit him (the Jap engine was still running) the result would have been even more severe.

Ice speedway at least has mudguards well down the tyres. 

Whatever they can have that all to themselves!