Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol 66 Issue 08 i Australian Motorcycle News

There’s no doubt about it, scrambled two-pots are flavour of the moment on the buffet of motorcycle mash-ups. Triumph got in early, Ducati reclaimed the name, and now every brand with half a heritage to celebrate is joining a mad scramble for the Deus dollar. By BMW’s own admission the company missed the boat slightly with the whole heritage model movement. But I guess it can be excused, since it has been busy ensuring the Boxer-twin heritage continues into the 21st century with liquid-cooling and space age electronic whizzbangery. With that deed done, BMW could turn its attention to prolonging the life of the air-cooled Boxer in a heritage range which is very much a styling nod to the past in a modern package, rather than a display of retro-engineering.…

Right now Ducati is proving that if you stick to what you know, you earn trust and confidence from your customers. The Italian factory is in the middle of record sales growth. Last year its worldwide sales increased 22 per cent. The trend has already continued this year with a 31 per cent increase in Australia alone in the first quarter. This remarkable growth should continue as nearly half its 2016 lineup are new models. Ducati’s success is based on one basic engine configuration: the 90º or L-twin. It is available in a huge range of options from the detuned, air-cooled Scrambler to the full superbike model of the 1299 Panigale. Ducati’s product planning isn’t that much different to those of the major British motorcycle manufacturers of the 1940s and…

Soon after the summer break, it looked pretty clear. Johann Zarco had taken control, and was on the way to becoming the first champion in the production-powered middle class to defend his title successfully. He left the Red Bull Ring after his fourth win in five races to add to his earlier win and second in another. He was 34 points clear of Álex Rins, and in the following week Rins broke his collarbone in a training spill. The 26-year-old Frenchman is nicknamed ‘The Professor’ for his studious approach and reliable tactics, generally getting faster at the end of races when it matters. What could possibly go wrong? In the next four races, though, he scored just 26 points, with a costly zero in Britain after getting penalised for knocking…

How long does it take six grand prix 250 singles to cross the line after 102km of intense racing? Less than a quarter of a second, if the track is Phillip Island. That’s how it was when Jack Miller won in 2014. In 2015 it wasn’t much different – Oliveira finishing first in a top five that all crossed the line within 0.3 of a second. The track encourages close racing in all classes; the Moto3 class absolutely thrives on it. It makes predicting a winner a fool’s game. One thing is certain: Brad Binder doesn’t have to win, having become 2016’s first champion with four races to spare, and South Africa’s first since 1980. It was achieved with a toothy grin and an almost flawless campaign out of the…

1000km/h The jets are back! No more of the lovely, little and very skillful aerobatic displays of the RAAF roulettes, this year two F/A-18A Classic Hornets will have race-goers’ eyes skyward as they hit speeds of 1000km/h at altitudes of just 150m! Phwoar! AUSTRALIA’S BEST Even a general admission ticket will let you wander in and out of the garages of the fastest racers in Oz. The Australian Superbike and Supersport racers will be vying for the Phillip Island Championship while being the supporting act to the international grand prix classes. POLISH AND PARK It’s the event’s best parking spot! Wash and polish your bike, fill in the entry form on the Aussie event’s website to enter it in the Show ’n’ Shine, and you’ve just got yourself some free…

It’s the end of June 1992. Rob Phillis has just ridden two World Superbike races on the sweeping curves of the Österreichring, these days known as the Red Bull Ring. Score for the day? A second and a fourth in close finishes, and a new lap record. At 36 years of age, he was leading the world championship. Happy man? No, frustrated to be fourth, in fact. He reckons Ducati’s Giancarlo Falappa held him up and, more galling, the Italian went on to win. Phillis at that point in the 1992 championship had two victories to his name and five second placings. Kawasaki teammate Aaron Slight was the only other four-cylinder rider who’d won a race. But in the next round at Mugello on 19 July, Phillis crashed in Race…

1 Monitoring front wheel speed and suspension travel The bike is accelerating hard, shifting load to the rear and lifting the front wheel, which decelerates as it leaves the asphalt, so the white trace (front wheel speed) drops below the red (bike speed). At the same time the front suspension tops out, making a zero value on the trace. These inputs tell the AWS that the bike is in a wheelie situation. Here the difference between bike speed and front-wheel speed is about 30km/h. On a longer wheelie the speed differential can reach 100km/h. 2 Monitoring pitch As the bike wheelies, it pitches to the rear. The extent of the pitch – from a horizontal zero value – and the rate of increase tell the AWS whether this is a…

1 Opening the throttle The rider is entering the first phase of throttle opening from full lean, around 60o from the vertical. 2 Sudden increase in rpm and speed The rpm and rear wheel speed suddenly increase – by up to 300rpm and 6km/h – as the transmission takes up the slack when engine goes from off-throttle to on-throttle. This is the jerk that the AJS seeks to fix, though in this case it looks like the system needs remapping because the hit is big enough to make the rider ease off the throttle (1). 3 Minimising jerk The red and white lines are analogous for all but the 10 to 30 milliseconds when the AJS detects the jerk and reduces torque. The reduction in torque is so severe and…

RONALD ‘BON’ SCOTT was an ex-wharfie and delinquent from Perth who moved to Adelaide as a singer in a country-folk group. An impish figure with a wicked leer hidden beneath a mane of long brown hair, Scott played a whisper-quiet recorder in between warbling country-rock ballads. An extrovert who loved life and people, Scott always held centre stage at the band’s wild parties in Aldgate, the home town of rising racer Jeremy Burgess. At 11pm on 3 May 1974, a highly intoxicated Scott was rehearsing with his new band, the Mount Lofty Rangers, at the Old Lion Hotel in North Adelaide. Not long into the jam, he had an argument with a band member and stormed out. He smashed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the ground before jumping on…

The Ulysses combines cornering agility with strong drive out of bends thanks to big reserves of textured V-twin torque 1 Safe highway touring range from the 16.7-litre tank is around 300km 2 Shorter riders might struggle with the 890mm seat height 3 Shocks at both ends are fully adjustable long-travel Showa units 4 Firestorm 1203cc V-Twin engine pumps out 76kW and 114Nm Buell motorcycles were never mainstream and are even less so since Harley-Davidson shut it down in 2009. Nevertheless there are compelling reasons to consider joining ‘Team Buell’. Buell’s real fringe-dweller is the XB12X Ulysses, an adventure tourer, although Erik Buell himself labelled it a ‘touring supermotard’. Lined up against its contemporaries, it’s less like a 1200 GS Beemer and more like a Ducati Multistrada. But it’s all Buell,…

Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Ducati Racing) came into the Magny-Cours weekend on a relative high after a dominant Lausitz race in the dry followed by a respectable finish of sixth in the wet. In France there were similar conditions with a wet and drying first race and a fully dry Race 2. Davies was imperious in each, although he had to wait for his chance to lead in both 21-lap battles. Race day one, with Jonathan Rea (KRT) on pole for only the seventh time in his entire career, gave us one of the most messed up but thrilling races of the year. Although there was no rain evident anymore, the majority of riders chose to take to the still-damp track on full wets. It was the safe option, for the…

JOSH BROOKES WAS reported to be on his way back to the UK racing scene in 2017, for the Halsall Yamaha team in BSB. But according to Brookes this is just one of his current options. “Nothing is confirmed yet,” he said at the Magny-Cours round of WSBK. “I have had a meeting with Martin (from Halsall). I have also had a sit-down meeting with Phillip Neill (Tyco BMW). And then I’m scheduled to meet Stuart Higgins from Buildbase (BMW). And there is another outside idea – there is also one possibility to stay in the WSBK paddock. “I am hoping to hear something before Jerez, or at the latest at Jerez. At the moment I’m trying to get all the information but not everyone has all the details at…

SPEEDWAY FANS WILL head to Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium for the 2016 season finale with this year’s world champion yet to be crowned – but all indications are the remarkably talented 46-year-old American Greg Hancock will claim his fourth world crown. Before the season-ending rounds in Sydney in 2002, and in Melbourne last year, the world champion had been decided at the penultimate round. That’s not the case this year, but Greg Hancock needs to score just three points to get over the line. In recent weeks Australian fans dared to dream of an Australian being crowned world champion in Melbourne, but even if Jason Doyle had managed to get on track in Melbourne, the 11-point deficit would have proven a massive hurdle given that the veteran American has built up…

1984 Ducati SL650 Pantah Ducati’s SL Pantah series used an identical frame to the preceding TL models, and was produced from 1979 to 1985. The 500 SL Pantah was the first Ducati to have belt-driven camshafts. This move away from bevel-gear overhead cam designs allowed the Pantah to deliver better performance, and the smaller model's success paved the way for the introduction of a 600cc version in 1981. The 650SL Pantah rolled off the production line in '84 and '85 with a stroked 600SL engine (58mm increased to 61.5mm) and also gave rise to the 750cc TT1 homologation special which was bored out by a further 2mm. What it’s got The Ducati 650SL Pantah is powered by an air-cooled, 649cc, SOHC, 90° V-twin, carburetted four-stroke engine with two desmodromically actuated…

Keep it up! Hello Chris, I just wanted to let you know how much I have enjoyed reading the past couple of issues of AMCN. Vol 66 No 07 is a cracker! Not so long ago, I used to buy every issue of AMCN, but unfortunately it became absolutely maddening to read – it was just not value for money. With the incessant wet and cold weather here (Central West NSW) over the last couple of months, my lovely wife has been buying me AMCN to help ward off cabin fever and I am delighted to find so much quality writing and a broad range of very interesting content. I really enjoyed the historical articles on Agostini and MV, Ginger Molloy and the heroes of Bonneville. With the diverse content…

WHAT’S A SCOOTER doing in a MotoGP issue? If you are at the track, take a look around. Scooters are everywhere because Europeans love scooters, and many love Italian brands – especially Piaggio. I’m a big fan of scooters. They’re fun and versatile, and there’s no easier way to get around a populated urban area than on a twist-and-go. Aussies also seem to love a bit of Italian flair. Piaggio is Australia’s leading scooter manufacturer, and the best selling scooter in Australia is the Fly 150, a Piaggio product. The next step up in the Piaggio range from the Fly 150 used to be the BV350 (aka the Beverley 350). The gap between the two has now been filled by the all-new Medley 150 model (Also available in an S…

It’s lean and mean, with a healthy dose of thumping power Ducati’s new Hypermotard 939 is a weapon. There, I’ve said it. It’s lean and mean, with a healthy dose of thumping power to justify the ‘supermoto on steroids’ look that sets it apart from everything else on the road. This motorcycle shook the world when it debuted in the capable hands of factory rider Ruben Xaus in 2007. It was everyone’s fantasy – a bike that could get the rear wheel sliding around corners, yet blessed with distinctively cool styling. For most it was just a dream, though. The big-bore air-cooled, 1078cc Testrasetta beast was too punchy for commuting, and impractical for extended periods in the saddle. Ducati recognised this and set about overhauling the design with the aim…

BY THE MID-1950S Ducati’s SOHC 125cc single was the bike to beat in Italy’s hugely popular long-distance road races. An example of its dominance was when factory rider Giuliano Maoggi won the Moto Giro outright in 1956. Over a gruelling 1200km, he left the entire 175cc class in his wake. But things were different on the world stage with both the 125cc and 250cc Grand Prix championships reeling from the dominance of NSU’s twin-cylinder racers of 1953-54. The NSU twin was destined to have a huge influence on motorcycle racing design, especially for Honda. But unlike Honda, Ducati already had the concept in hand – designer-engineer Fabio Taglioni had first drawn plans for one back in 1950. Ducati’s thinking in 1955 was if it was going to get serious about…

Phillip Island is a classic venue, 2016 a classic season. So it’s hard to predict anything but a classic race, in a year where close racing and unexpected results have gone hand in hand to produce what many are calling a New Golden Age. After years, decades even, when you pretty much knew that one of the aliens – a select group of three or four – would win every race, a combination of new rules, new tyres, new electronics and new talent have led to new circumstances and new heroes. The numbers tell the story. In the first 14 races there have been eight different winners. From when Jorge Lorenzo won Round 6 at Mugello until Márquez won Round 14 at Aragon, there was not a single repeat. MotoGP…

WHEN JACK MILLER stepped straight out of Moto3 – after missing the title by just two points – and straight into MotoGP, there were a few doubters. Too much too soon, for a 20-year-old with distinct wild-man tendencies. There were others who thought him wise to sidestep Moto2, from whence a number of good riders have found it impossible to escape. A string of crashes seemed to suggest that the first faction had a point, and they continued this year. But they masked a steady learning curve, a raising of his level – in spite of a Honda that proved a handful this year even to Márquez and Pedrosa. Assen handed him the chance to prove, as he put it, “that I’m not an idiot. I can ride a motorcycle.”…

On the box Channel 10 and ONEHD will broadcast the live qualifying sessions for all classes between 1.30pm and 5pm (AEST) on Saturday, 22 October. Race coverage will appear live on both channels also from 12.30pm on Sunday, 23 October, and will run through to after the MotoGP podium presentation, finishing at 5pm. Fox Sports will broadcast the event, too, so check local guides for details. RACEDAY, SUNDAY 23 OCTOBER   On your computer Ask anyone who has forked out their hard-earned for a subscription to the official online MotoGP coverage and they’ll tell you it’s money well spent. Watch every practice session, qualifying session and race as they happen, or lose days trawling the archives dating back decades. And being so late in the season, you should pick up…

Since electronic rider aids appeared on the MotoGP scene, they have fired plenty of debate. And yet, few people have been able to explain with any great accuracy what they do. With teams investing huge sums in developing new technology, the systems were closely guarded secrets. All that changed in 2016. Concerned at the gulf between the haves and have-nots of crazily expensive aids, Dorna levelled the playing field by supplying standard Magnetti Marelli software. “We do a lot more now,” says Monster Tech 3 Yamaha rider Bradley Smith. “We tame the engine with the throttle more than with the traction control. Last year you did something and the computer filtered everything; now we do it all. “When I used to open or close the throttle, the electronics would say,…

1 Engaging engine braking control The actions of the rider shutting the throttle and shifting down puts the system into the engine braking strategy. 2 White trace is rpm. Green trace is lean angle. The revs rise as the rider shifts from fourth to third, while lean angle reduces as the rider finishes the run from the previous corner and lifts the bike upright for braking. 3 Monitoring rear wheel load As the rider applies ten bar (145psi) of front brake pressure, the bike pitches forward onto the front wheel, dramatically reducing load on the rear wheel. The amount of load on the rear equates to the amount of grip available, which will determine how much engine braking the EBC can apply. There are two traces showing load that have…

Under Attack Ron Angel Wholesale From $229 (03) 9464 3366 ronangel.com.au The new Continental SportAttack 3 is claimed to offer excellent rider feedback when pushing hard at maximum lean angles. It’s a dual compound tyre that offers seamless transition between soft and hard compounds, and has zero degree belt construction. From $229 (f) and $289 (r). Under Cover RadGuard $145 (02) 6658 0060 radguard.com.au Rad Guard has developed radiator and oil cooler guards to suit the Yamaha MT-01. Available separately or as a set, the guards retain good airflow but offer protection from stones, rocks and other road debris that might otherwise cause damage. The guards are also easy to fit and they look good on the bike. Screen Rider JB Hi-Fi $89/$49 NA jbhifi.com.au Ride 2 claims to showcase…

One of the great rivalries in Australian motorsport reached its 2016 crescendo at the final round of the 2016 ASBK Championship at Victoria’s Winton Raceway on 2 October. Yamaha Racing Team/Yamaha Motor Australia’s Wayne Maxwell went into the round leading the championship by seven points from 2015 rival and ultimate nemesis, Crankt Protein Honda Racing/Motul’s Troy Herfoss, and it was game on from the first practice session. Like heavyweight boxers, the two protagonists lined up against each other in what promised to be an epic showdown for the 2016 title. Herfoss landed a critical blow early when he took pole position, and the single point that came with it. Maxwell, however, struggled with bike set-up, as did his YRT/YMA teammate Glenn Allerton. Both failed to qualify for Superpole, qualifying down…

This is the race when Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) could have – and probably should have – won the Supersport World Championship for the fifth time. Leading the field, however, after a Superpole winning start, he fell at mid-race distance after losing a front end that he says gave him no warning. American PJ Jacobsen (Honda World Supersport) was looking good for a strong result but fell on lap one, losing the front again without knowing why. After Sofuoglu had gone out it was a proper fight for race honours, with Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) finally winning again after a tough year plagued by bad luck and problems. He had to give it his all, as Lausitzring sensation Niki Tuuli (Kallio racing Yamaha) was back again and…

THE SHAPE AND size of the 2017 season is becoming clearer, but there remain more possibilities than certainties. Malaysia will not be a feature anymore, India is still waiting for the right moment and Thailand should definitely be back again. There may be a round in Argentina, but some guarantees will have to be in place first. Motegi is the only homologated option in Japan, but no interest has been shown in running a WorldSBK event there. In Europe, Valencia is under discussion, as is Brno, and if there is to be a return to Portugal after all, it will be Portimao, not Estoril – which cannot get the required support from the local authorities. An Austrian round is not on the cards as they already have both MotoGP and…

THE 2016 KTM Australian Junior Motocross Championship (AJMX) attracted more than 600 bikes to the Riverland town of Renmark in South Australia, with riders arriving from right across Australia and places as far flung as New Zealand and Estonia to hit the Riverland Junior Motorcycle venue and compete for the crowns. The week-long event kicked off with official practice sessions on Sunday, before breaking into heat races on Monday. Many of the classes exceeded the 40-bike track capacity, and group heats were therefore run to determine which riders would compete in the finals. A dramatic weather change midway through the week changed the complexion of the event, with torrential storms and a state-wide electricity blackout striking on Wednesday afternoon. This was followed by heavy rain overnight into Thursday. Race officials…

ASK CAL CRUTCHLOW or Dani Pedrosa about the importance of tyre choice in a MotoGP race. The Brit gambled on a pair of harder-option hoops in the Czech Republic and it earned him his maiden MotoGP win. The diminutive Spaniard, on the other hand, chose soft when everyone else went for the harder rubber and when combined with the warmer conditions of the Italian GP, it helped him grab his first win of the season. If the Phillip Island circuit is anything, it’s tough on MotoGP tyres. Take the 2013 event, for example, aptly earning the nickname of the Blunder Down Under after the race was reduced to 19 laps with a mandatory stop to change bikes after severe and unprecedented tyre degradation occurred in the practice sessions leading up…

Ken Blake, Tony Hatton, Graeme Crosby, Roger Heyes, Jim Budd, Dennis Neill, Garry Thomas and Mick Cole count among the elite production racers of the 1970s. But one name that needs to be added to that top echelon of big-bore runners is Roy Denison, the popular St George MCC member who plied his trade aboard a private Honda CB750 and Kawasaki 900s/1000s in both Production and Improved Touring events. Fellow St George member Lee Roebuck remembers Roy as a great bloke who was widely respected in the paddock for his knowledge and generosity. “Roy was as fast and aggressive as any rider in Australia,” Roebuck says. He didn’t win many of the big-name events as a privateer, but ‘Roy the Boy’ was always there or thereabouts. His best result was…

IN THE SHED of his Launceston home, motorcycle enthusiast Mal Innes-Wayling has been concocting one very dark and neat shot of café-racer cool: the Mad Merc. The build started as a standard 2015 Braaap ST-250 Shadow before being transformed through a few key changes. An old-school rustic petrol tank was fitted, and then complimented by a matching front guard which has been shortened and given the same patina finish as the tank. To make the bike sit lower and appear more compact, Mal cut four inches from the front fork length. He then adjusted the headlight bracket, moving it 20mm closer to the fork and also modified the speedo bracket to lower the gauges by 15mm. The result is a clean and compact finish to the front end, keeping everything…

Harley-Davidson’s decision to shut down Buell in 2009 brought an end, first time around, to Erik Buell’s dream of breaking the conventional two-wheeled template of American motorcycle design. The bankruptcy last year of his successor company, EBR, after a run-in with his Indian partners, may have been the final curtain on Erik’s ambitions, but the past three decades have shown that Erik Buell is a survivor and can’t be counted out. Buell has long swum against the tide of transatlantic conformity, firstly in creating a range of air-cooled pushrod V-twin sportbikes, each with avant-garde chassis offering a level of handling and performance at odds with the American Way of motorcycling. Harley meets Bimota. The Buell RR1000, launched in 1986, was the first bike to incorporate Erik’s radical ideas on chassis…

The extent of Ducati’s interest with parallel twins between 1964 and 1968 was bordering on obsession SURELY DUCATI HAD realised by the 1960s that developing twins was a dead end. Well, no. It jumped back into the shark’s pool, this time with its mind on the booming American road market. By 1964 Triumph and BSA twins were roaring out of showrooms across the continent. Oh, to get a slice of this action, thought Ducati’s muddled management. Its small-capacity single-cylinder models had carved out an important niche in the world’s biggest motorcycle marketplace. Now it was time to take on the British at their own game. Urged on by their US distributor Berliner Motor Corporation and by news that Benelli and Laverda were developing similar twins, Ducati came up with…

TWELVE MONTHS AGO, the MotoGP planets aligned and Phillip Island produced what was then being touted as the race of the century. Messrs. Iannone, Lorenzo, Márquez and Rossi raised the roof at Phillip Island, which, as it has turned out, was the opening salvo in a four-way battle between Honda, Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki that has raged throughout 2016, culminating in eight different winners in eight races. It also shot Gavin the seagull to international celebrity status – and into heaven. Fans know that Phillip Island has a habit of producing a Race of the Century almost every time it’s warm and sunny, but it’s not warm and sunny as often as we would like. Jorge Lorenzo led more laps of the 2015 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix than any other…

1 Throttling on through the turn The rider is opening the throttle in ‘steps’; he applies more gas, then feathers the throttle by between two and 10 per cent as he feels the tyre spin. When the tyre regains grip he applies more gas, then feathers again and so on. He didn’t need to do this with last year’s more sophisticated factory TCS, which would have done it all for him. 2 Monitoring wheelspin When the bike starts to lift from full lean the spin target is very low: 0-2 per cent (in terms of difference of rear wheel speed over bike speed), depending on rider preference. As the rider raises the bike to exit the corner, the spin target increases because the rear tyre and the rider can cope…

TROY GUENTHER AND Sam Clarke fought out an epic battle for the Australian Supersport Championship, and it took until the final corner of the final round of the year to reveal the champ. In the opening race, Cube Racing’s Callum Spriggs had his Kawasaki ZX-6R sizzling, and jumped out to an early lead from Luke Mitchell riding the JNL Racing /Maxima Racing Oil/TRD/Duspeed/Earmond Racing Oil sponsored Yamaha YZF-R6. Guenther, on board the Graffiti Alley Racing/YRD/Link/Motosure/Raceart Australia/RST/Arai Yamaha YZF-R6 and Clarke, riding the Banham WA Racing Kawasaki ZX6R, started well, moving into third and fourth positions respectively. Guenther rode patiently and appeared to be nursing his tyres, while Clarke came under attack from behind causing him to lose ground to his rival. It soon became apparent that Guenther had his tactics…

JACK MILLER HAS admitted he faces a physically demanding return to MotoGP after an injury-interrupted mid-season. His primary goal is now a strong showing in his home race at Phillip Island, and he will use this weekend’s comeback race in Japan as shakedown for the Aussie GP. Sunday’s 24-lap Japanese MotoGP at Motegi will be just the third race Miller has contested in 13 weeks, due to back and hand fractures suffered in a warm-up session crash in Austria back in mid-August. He finished seventh in the German GP in July, crashed at Austria, then returned prematurely at the British GP on 4 September where he raced to a lowly 16th place. It’s now been 17 weeks since he splashed to his superb maiden MotoGP win at the Dutch TT…

THE FINAL ROUND of the GP Juniors Australian Junior Road Racing Championships was held alongside the ASBK title decider at Winton Raceway (30 September-2 October), with three races and many entertaining duels throughout the 16-bike field. The GP Junior class included a number of ‘firsts’. It was the first time the juniors had competed for an official Australian Road Racing Championship, the first time the juniors competed in an official capacity beside their older peers in the senior Australian Championship, and the first time the Suzuki Gixxer 150 had been raced in Australia. The GP Juniors compete in three categories: the 85cc and 70cc two-strokes classes, and a 160cc four-stroke class. In the 85cc class, Joel Kelso (RMU 80) and Scott Nicholson (Honda RS85) had rarely been more than a…

THE HARLEY CLUB of Victoria (HCV) was established in 1924 and is one of the largest motorcycle sporting clubs in Australia. These days the HCV is predominately a dirt track club based at the State Motorcycle Complex at Broadford. An Australian dirt track is similar to a speedway track or American flat track, but the layout has right and left-hand corners linked to one or more straights. There are no jumps and the surface is typically granitic sand, although there is also packed clay tracks and oiled surfaces at other clubs. Track lengths vary between 500 and 700 metres and are approximately 10 to 12 metres wide. Dirt track racing is one of the most exciting and easiest forms of motorcycling sport to get started in. It doesn’t require a…

 Tell us something we don’t know about you. “I had hit the ground that hard that it blew a full turd out” Probably that I was born with only one testicle. ‘One Ball Bill’ my dad calls me. Some people say: ‘Gee, you must have big nuts to race bikes’ – and I say: ‘I’ve only got one.’ They always laugh because they think I’m joking. When was your first race? It was actually on a jet ski when I was 14. I also started doing motocross around the same time and then I went into roadracing and trackdays with my dad. Your first victory? It was one of the state rounds, and then we won one of the races in the Australian Superstock Championship. In 2004 we were leading…