Australian Motorcycle News — January 03, 2018

To p. Ducatis were out in

force in the mid-1980s,

including for a young Kevin

Magee (#6) in 1985

Above. Pete Byers (#2) on

the pre-production Ducati

Montjuic prototype and

Chris Oldfield (#14) with

the Gowanloch Bimota DB1

Top right. Arthur Davis

warms up the Gowanloch

TT2 Ducati.

Right. Mal Pitman

converted a Yamaha

XS1100 to chain drive for

Greg Pretty to race

much better than the Katanas, the Team Honda

CB1100RCs of Andrew Johnson and Greg Pretty

had been disappointingly slow. And no one was

counting out John Pace on the Peter Molloy-built

1100cc Su z u k i.

An indication of how the top teams had

detuned to last the distance was the fact that the

Production sub-class wasn’t that far behind the

front-runners in lap times. Some big names in this

class were Peter Byers, Neil Chivas, Roger Heyes,

Rod Cox and Neville Hiscock.

Freeth spent the first half-hour shadowing the

leading bunch of Phillis, Pace and Cole. Then, on

lap 15, he picked off Cole and slowly reeled in Pace

before closing in on Phillis. He was giving up at

least 10km/h to Phillis down Conrod Straight, but

the superior handling of the compact McIntosh

Suzuki came into its own over the top of the

mountain.

Then Phillis starting experiencing front brake

and tyre issues. Freeth eventually finished some

two laps ahead of Byers, with Wayne Clarke

another lap further back. Finally, a ‘prototype’ had

won the Arai 500.

The gruelling

Arai 500

was the

showcase and

ultimate test

of the latest

Japanese

four-cylinder

roadbikes