Australian Motorcycle News — January 03, 2018

Top right.John Pace’s

Moriwaki Kawasaki with

nylon drive sprocket

Right.Andrew Johnson

set a new lap record on a

Honda RS500 GP bike

Below.Dave Robbins puts

his racing numbers on the

Frasers-sponsored NCR

Ducati

GLORY DAYS BATHURST

Freeth then finished second in 1984 and he

won it again in 1985 on a single-shock version

of the McIntosh chassis. By this time almost 30

roadgoing replicas had been produced. Eventually

50 Bathurst Replicas were sold, many through

Mick Hone’s Melbourne Suzuki dealership.

Twin peaks

Bathurst mirrored major motorcycle trends

throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Nowhere is this more

obvious than in the number of Ducati specials that

raced on the Mountain in the mid-’80s.

Battle of the Twins was becoming a worldwide

alternative class to the racing establishment,

even running as a support event to the Daytona

200 in the US. Australian tuners joined the fray

and a squadron of Ducati TT racers turned up to

Bathurst in 1984. Among them were Ron Young,

Ian Gowanloch and his right-hand wrench Arthur

Davis with riders Chris Oldfield and Pete Muir.

Other riders on TT2 Ducatis included Graeme

Morris and Lindsay McKay.

These little machines had earned the reputation

of being the equivalent of a four-stroke GP bike.

Their sound and performance excited fans but

frustrated the main players on factory machinery.

Bob Brown and rider Kevin Magee took the TT2

racer to a new level with an F1 750cc Ducati that

was eventually bored and stroked to 851cc. Magee

was running fifth in the 1985 Arai 500 until the

bolts sheared on his rear sprocket.

The following year two ultimate versions of the

air-cooled Ducati racer appeared: the Montjuich

and the DB1 Bimota. Ducati importer Frasers

had enough clout with the factory to give the

Montjuich an unheralded world debut at the

Sydney Motorcycle Show. Then the pre-production

prototype stamped with the number 001 was raced

at Bathurst by seasoned campaigner Pete Byers.

Meanwhile, Gowanloch and Oldfield were

developing a potent version of Bimota’s DB1. With

help from tuner Pete Smith, it was eventually

bored and stroked from 750cc to 985cc where it

made 100bhp (75kW). It soon became a crowd

favourite, but getting it to hold together for the

length of the Arai 500 was a challenge.

Eye candy

Through the years Bathurst has attracted some of

the world’s most exotic motorcycles, both race and

prototypes, and some amazing specials.

Bathurst has

attracted some

of the world’s

most exotic

motorcycles,

both race and

prototypes