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Schwantz and Mackenzie on the Nurburgring box

A 500GP bike never fails to stop me in my tracks and that’s exactly what happened when I spotted this Schwantz example from the early nineties, proudly displayed on the Arai stand at the recent Motorcyclelive show.  On loan from Crescent Suzuki and accompanied by a rostrum publicity shot from the 1990 German GP at the Nurburgring, I felt the urge to write a few words on that special weekend. I started the year running my own 250 GP team with fairly standard TZ Yamahas but was drafted in as Kevin Schwantz’s team mate after Kevin Magee suffered a serious head injury at the second Grand Prix in Laguna Seca.  With no testing and some major Spanish food poisoning I finished 8th at the next round in Jerez then followed that up with a 5th place in Misano. Next up was the Nurburgring and after qualifying on the second row of the grid, my crew chief Geoff Crust informed me he had a premonition of a race day rostrum finish. He also told me I better make it come true as he was already looking forward to a few post race celebratory refreshments. While I hoped Crusty was the new mystic meg, the truth was I would have been more than happy to buy the beers if I made it to the flag inside the top five. I had an outside chance of catching one major scalp as Wayne Rainey was riding with a nasty hand injury but I suspected adrenalin would see him through the day. I also followed Mick Doohan a fair bit in practice but he was beginning to find his feet on the Rothmans Honda so was going to be another problem.  When the lights went out Schwantz and Rainey went straight to the front I while I hung in behind Doohan and Pier Francesco Chilli, and then it happened. Coming out of the bottom right hand hairpin, Doohan and Chilli simultaneously high sided in one of the most spectacular crashes of the season. I never liked seeing any fellow riders crash but I made the most of this early race gift and rode my 160bhp/115kg RGV hard to the flag, claiming my first podium of the season.  We partied hard (win or lose we always did) that night and I went on to have my best ever season finishing fourth overall in the championship. After the last round in Australia, I finished second to Kevin at Sugo in Japan then won in Malaysia at another international race that KS didn’t attend. I also tested at Eastern Creek for the following season but then was flicked from the team for reasons that still remain a mystery. Hey Ho!       

2014 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Concourse d’ Elegance Report

The 2014 edition of the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show continued its now 23-year tradition as the premier outdoor streetbike event in America with producer photographer Jim Gianatsis moving the show this year to the beautiful green lawns of the Malibu Golf Course among the twisty canyon roads in the Santa Monica Mountains alongside the Pacific Ocean. Highlighting this year’s exciting activities was the emergence of another new and soon to be renown custom bike builder to the sport for which the Calendar Show is known for cultivating. Taking Best of Show in this year’s Calendar Bike Building Championship was Calin Senciac’s Imagine Vehicles International / ImagineVehicles.com motorsports fabrication shop with an incredible custom billet aluminum designed chassis built by Terry Ward and the shop crew, housing a legendary 1979 Honda CBX 1047cc air-cooled in-line 6-cylinder engine.

Honda Announces 400cc Version of 500-Series Engine

Honda has revealed a new, smaller-displacement variation of the 470cc parallel-twin engine introduced on its new CBR500, CB500F and CB500X models. The new engine has a bore of 67mm, just like Honda‘s 500-series engine, but a stroke of 56.6mm instead of the longer 66.8mm. The result is an engine displacement of 399cc, which makes the new engine a better fit for markets such as Japan license restrictions are much stricter for engines larger than 400cc.