Classic Racer

On December 20, 2020, my good friend Peter Williams said his final goodbye and passed into the history of motorcycling’s greats. Peter and I became friends in the mid-1980s well after his brilliant career as a passionate rider and development enginee

Hubert Auriol – who sadly passed away in January, aged just 68 – was not only a three-time winner of the Dakar Rally, but the first to win it on both two wheels and four. He won the race for BMW in 1981 and 1983 as well as winning the 1992 event on f

James Whitham rates him as one of the most amazing talents he’s ever shared a track with, so it seemed natural for us to use this excuse to share this picture of Anthony Gobert and the Bimota SB8-R from 21 years ago… Bimota has a rich history in Worl

The destination of the 2000 World Superbike Riders’ crown was conceivably altered by Yamaha rider Noriyuki Haga’s ultimate three-week ban after a failed drugs test at that season’s first round in South Africa. During the off-season Nori-chan had appa

The World Superbike fans took the Samurai of Slide to their hearts, as no Japanese rider had ever been before. It came thanks to the Yamaha star’s all-action style, in which nothing less than 100% was ever on display. After my ride on hisYZF-R7 OW-02

Gary Nixon’s racing years divided neatly into two chapters. The Triumph years in the 1960s saw him win the Daytona 200 and two successive Grand National Championships on a mixture of dirt and tarmac tracks as well as surviving a major crash that coul

With the Iconic Metal from Phil Aynsley last issue, we figured we’d take another view of this amazing machine: if you have ever owned an across-the-frame four-cylinder motorcycle, you can thank Carlo Gianini and Piero Remor for the 1923 concept and G

I was brought up on best bit of land and with lots of room. Back in 1972 dad bought an airfield from David Brown tractors – dad took it from them for £12,000. It had a hangar, many acres of rough Yorkshire moor, which meant me and my sisters could pr

Davide Tardozzi hails from Ravenna, Italy, near the Adriatic coast. Trying to keep himself from getting killed racing around on the local streets, Davide started racing with a 125, but after two years decided it was time to move up onto 600cc product

I’d seen Steve Hillary’s 888 Ducati Corsa tucked away in the corner of his workshop after many a trip to his Devon based workshop, Redmax Speedshop and it had always appealed to me… I guess it’s the 1980s/1990s styling, bold Oxford Products racing li

For the race that put him on the map, Johnny Cecotto wore a pair of Giacomo Agostini replica boots from which he had removed the signature of the Italian rider, who at the time was the man to beat. It was a telling move… It was the 1975 Daytona 200,

Britten motorcycles became so iconic in such a short period of time during the 1990s that several buyers put them straight into their private collections, or museums: this is where some will rightly remain to immortalise one of the world’s greatest m