The magazine for classic Japanese motorcycles

Star letter: Thanks for the memories

Being a club racer with only an RG250 proddy racer for transport, I borrowed the family Fiesta and drove from Bristol to Brands with a mate. What a day – a heady mix of exotic Kushitani and Nixe leathers, Loctite Yamaha’s great looking FZ750s, and Trevor Nation’s “I’ve just hit the big time” Sierra XR4i with NAT IOIV on the registration plate (spaced to read “NATION” – he must have been influenced by Stavros who allegedly had PEN 15 on his Merc in those days).

What else? A very fresh faced Jim Whitham driving a Fiat hire car into the paddock (he didn’t look old enough to drive, let alone race) and the US team with their very trick bikes up against the Brits who, Haslam and Nation aside, seemed to have only a few GSX-R750s with pattern fairings and Micron race pipes. What chance did they have?

What about the previously unheard sound of knee sliders scraping round Graham Hill bend? (step forward Mr Haslam on his standard metallic blue VFR). And then winding up a mate who couldn’t afford to come by ringing him up from the call box at the top of Paddock Hill bend so he could hear what he was missing... and then, by sheer good fortune, stationing ourselves on the outside of Clearways and seeing ‘that’ move, hearing the whole of that side of the circuit gasp in astonishment and realising that we’d just seen the future of motorcycle racing and its name was Wayne Rainey.

On a related point, I think you should offer a year’s subscription to the first VFR 6X Geoff Johnson TT87 replica – even cooler than the admittedly ice cold Rainey replicas. Wasn’t it the fastest thing on the Island that year? I seem to recall reading that the carbs had their own first class seat from Japan, or was that just a rumour?

Roland Jones,
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