Lister Engine Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: mikenash on August 03, 2019, 07:00:33 PM

Title: one for the knockers and sneerers
Post by: mikenash on August 03, 2019, 07:00:33 PM
Back in 2007 I was fortunate enough to spend a week at the Isle of Man TT

It was my 50th birthday present to my motorcycle-enthusiast self.  It was also the 100th running of the famous event - so it was a big party.  Back then my then GF and I were both freelance writer/photographers for various motor/motorcycle publications so it was a rare opportunity to see, photograph and write about something special

The racing was as spectacular as you might imagine.  It was the first year riders cracked the 130MPH lap average speed, and the weather was fine

But my favourite memory is the old guys from Honda who had come back 40 or50 years later with their old race bikes and their memories.

Almost without exception their stories went something like this:

When we first began to build motorcycles the British laughed at us and said "Let then make and sell little toy bikes; what do we care?"

Then, ten years later when we first arrived to compete at the Isle of man - they looked at our small motorcycles and sneered and laughed

When we got out onto the track and began to win races - the laughter stopped . . .

"This year (2007)" one of them said "you will not find a race here at the IOM - apart from specialist ones - where all three bikes on the podium are not Japanese"

Small beginnings . . .

OK so, see below.  This is a beginning and (like some of the early Japanese motorcycles) by God it's an ugly duckling of a car.  BUT, IMHO, I think it might be a sign of things to come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSbWwn_YCr8

And, at the complete other end of the scale, hands up anyone who is familiar with the Goodwood Festival of Speed sprint?.. It's a BIG fish in a small pond

This year, an electric car knocked a couple of seconds (significant in a sub-40 second sprint event) off the record set 20 years ago by a McLaren F1 car which no-one (despite million-dollar attempts) had managed to ever beat

Check it out.  it won't take long to watch lol

And it's a VW - which says something about where the company is going.  Same car smashed the Pikes Peak hillclimb record last year and beat the previous electric car record at the Nurburgring this year in a time that's less than a minutes slower than the current outright record-holder, its cousin the Porsche hybrid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkLMzJN6vMA
Title: Re: one for the knockers and sneerers
Post by: guest23837 on August 03, 2019, 08:25:23 PM
My mate was telling me he met Guy Martin in the IOM a few years ago. I asked him what he said to him and he said I have no idea! He's brilliant and fearless tho!