Classic Racer

Classic Racer takes you so close you can actually smell the Castrol R. With the world's finest archive, and an editorial team who live and breathe the sport, the only way you'll get closer will be to put on your leathers.

Classic Racer

Clash of the titans

Fabulous Frankie!

Pro-Am returns!

WEISE STEALTH HOODIE WORTH £119.99 • Put your racing knowledge to the test and complete the puzzle to be in with a chance of winning this great prize. Good luck!

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Paddock Gossip • Compiled by The Classic Racer team // Send your classic racing news to: editor@classicracer.co.uk

Best of Billown! • The traditional pre-TT racing at the Billown course on the Isle of Man was its normal hectic and exciting affair. John Watterson was there for Classic Racer.

Whatever happened to? ARTIE BELL • Northern Irishman Artie Bell had to overcome the opposition of his father to eventually go racing, but when he did – he made an instant impression in a short, but sweet career.

TRAILBLAZER! • In the second part of our tribute to the late Pat Hennen, Classic Racer looks back on his years as Barry w team-mate at Texaco Heron Suzuki, and his fateful visit to the 1978 TT.

DOUBLE RED! • Ducati dominates MotoGP right now, and they dominated for a large part of the World Superbike series in the 1990s. In this issue, Alan Cathcart tests the Ducati 996 Bologna bullets of both Carl Fogarty and Pierfrancesco Chili from 1997.

FOGGY AND CHILI AT STAFFORD!

SIMPLY RED • Eight World Superbike Championships in a decade marked Ducati’s 888 and 916 production racers as ‘simply the best’ but it wasn’t always plain sailing for the Bologna bullets.

1973 KÖNIG 500 • Take one 500cc two-stroke powerplant intended for a marine outboard motor, add in a talented racer/engineer from New Zealand called Kim Newcombe and add a small, tight-knit team headed by engineer/mechanic Rod Tingate. Then sprinkle liberally with Kiwi pluck, nous and determination – as well as love and support from Kim’s wife Janeen. The result is this – the König 500 – a machine that (arguably) pointed the way to the future two-stroke domination of Grand Prix racing.

1975 HARLEY-DAVIDSON RR250

ALLSPEED AHEAD! • Classic Racer friends Tony and Claire Greenslade run Gibson/Allspeed exhausts in Essex. As a big part in the classic racing/Yamaha Past Masters scene, 2024 sees them expand still further into the CRMC scene with some new bikes: this issue, they hit the track!

SUZUKI Celebration • With the dominance of Suzuki’s RG500 in its early years – culminating in the Barry Sheene 500cc double championship in 1976/77 – it was clear that a production RG was the bike to have in racing. We look at what happened next: 1979-1986.

WILD-CARD WEEKEND! • Sean McKay lined up alongside some of World Superbike’s greatest riders in the Australian round of the series back in 2000. Little did he know how memorable it would be for a number of reasons.

Fred Clarke • In the first of his regular columns for Classic Racer, Fred Clarke – for more than 50 years the voice of British motorcycle racing – takes us back in time for some fun recollections!

BUILDING BARRY! CRASH, BANG, WALLOP! • Our Spike is knocked for six when he gets a phone call about Barry’s motor, and again when he has a ‘track incident’ at Portimao…

Back in the Day • Welcome to ‘Back in the Day!’ We want to see all your old photographs from way-back-when. They could be of you racing, or perhaps you meeting your racing idol – or maybe just snaps you’ve taken at a race event from Yesteryear: do be mindful of copyright!Send them to: BSimmonds@mortons.co.uk