The Post Classic Racing Association of NSW is on to a winner with the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed and in 2010, their annual Easter weekend extravaganza of blast-from-the-past racing at Eastern Creek continues to thrive. Dedicated to the former 500cc Grand Prix star who relieved some of his retirement boredom by taking up classic racing in the 1990’s and worked hard to lift the profile of the sport, the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed always makes for fantastic viewing. In a single morning, six decades of motorcycle development are on show, in full motion and at full noise.

Classic motorsport is like a museum where your imagination doesn’t have to fill in any blanks. Spot an immaculate 1960’s racebike in the pits, and instead of trying to picture what it would sound like, or how it would move, wait five minutes. It’ll be its turn on the track soon enough.

For anyone old enough to remember any of these bikes from their first time around, seeing them again fixes any wandering their memories might’ve done over the years; and for anyone younger and enamored of modern bikes’ crushing efficiency, the drama of a Spitfire-loud British single or a 220kg Japanese inline-four is an eye-opener.

The format for the weekend’s racing is short, sharp, and, for the most part, very, very loud. Everyone races four times, for between four and six laps; less likelihood of old machinery letting go in a short race and being there to take the grid in the next one. With the huge field of near-200 competitors into six age- and capacity-based categories, giving a total of 24 races over the course of the weekend; a total of some 130 laps of racing.

Classes

Because a classic meet really is about the history of motorcycle racing, and spreading the knowledge of how fast bikes evolved, it pays to learn a bit about the structure of it. Working backwards in time, we have:

- Pre-Modern – this looks a lot like a turn-of-the-century trackday. The Pre-Modern class is for bikes built between 1989 and 1995. It’s further split into Pre-Modern F1 (over 750cc) and F2 (under 750cc). So, F1 is for bikes like early FireBlades, ZXR750’s, the very first of the ZX-7R’s and SRAD GSX-R750’s and Ducati 916’s. In F2, early ZX-6R’s, CBR600’s Yamaha YZF600’s are the tools of choice – or, if you’re Sydney’s Paul Selwood, you go with an ex-Troy Bayliss, fully race-prepped, gleaming-white… ZZ-R600.

- New Era – 1982 to 1989; the dawn of the Japanese sportsbike. GPz900R’s and Yamaha FZ750’s are eligible, but everyone runs FZR1000’s and slab-sided GSX-R1100’s instead. Coffs Harbour Ducati dealers North Coast V-Twins’ 900cc-engined Bimota DB1, ridden by Russell Johnston, and Queenslander Scott Rinaldis’ bored-out Ducati 900ss-based project made up for their double-digit power outputs with A-grade pilots. Like Pre-Modern, there’s an F1 class for big bikes, and F2 for smaller ones.

Pre-Modern and New-Era F1 and F2 bikes all race together.

- Forgotten Era – 1973 to 1981; on one hand, huge inline-four cylinder engines, skinny steel tube cradle frames, synonymous with names like Crosby, Lawson, Hennen, Gardner, Magee, Phillis. Z1R Kawasaki motors in handmade frames by Rickman, McIntosh or P&M. Suzuki GS1000’s and GSX1100’s with a whole second frame’s worth of bracing. SS Ducatis. That’s the Unlimited Class, of over – way over, usually – 750cc.  On the other… two-strokes. Yamaha two-strokes, really. RD’s and RD-LC’s.  Hordes of them, in the 250, 350 and 500cc classes – just like the GP’s back then. Tiny, oddball machines from manufacturers like Bultaco and Aermacchi and 125cc GP bikes populate the smallest class.

- Post-Classic - 1963 to 1971; Norton and Triumph twins and singles, early Japanese two-strokes and small-capacity twins. 125, 250, 350, 500, 750 and Unlimited classes.

Forgotten Era and Post-Classics also race together, Unlimited and 750cc class bikes in one race, 500s and 350s in another, 125s and 250s in a third. The Unlimited/750cc race was the headline event, featuring Robbie Phillis on the Mick Hone-tuned #32 GSX1100 and former World Endurance Champion Warwick Nowland on one of pair of P&M Kawasakis.

- Classic -Bikes built between the dawn of time and 1962. OK, technically, there’s also the Vintage class for bikes in excess of 75 years of age, but nobody brought one of those to race. Manx Norton singles, Triton hybrids, titchy-engined Ducati roadracers, drum brakes all around, girder forks on the really old stuff.

- Sidecars -The special ward of the bike racing lunatic asylum is where they keep the sidecar racers. They make them race together, so they’re easier to keep an eye on. The most insane riding and engineering is all to be found in the sidecars, from old, home-built creations powered by the most suicidal engines ever put into motorcycles – 1970’s 750cc two-strokes, to bespoke GP-spec machines from Switzerland’s racing sidecar specialists LCR, hosts to CBR600, GSX-R1000 or ZZ-R1100 engines.

http://www.superbikeschool.com.au/

Motorcycling is a major passion of mine. It took me a long time to convince my parents that I’d be alright on a bike and ever since setting my sights on a learner legal Honda CBR 250 RR I’ve been captivated by just how much fun riding a bike can be. I’ve met lots of fellow riders along the way and ride regularly with them up and down some of the great bike routes of NSW. For me the best aspects of riding a motorbike are the community and the friends I’ve made as well as the satisfying feeling I get from a day of carving up snakelike roads. Whoever came up with the slogan of “Life’s pretty straight without Twisties” definitely rode a bike.

After 3 years of city riding and jumping from the trusty 250cc to a 1000cc 2005 Yamaha R1 I decided it was time to enter a new chapter and find out for myself just what the fuss is about riding on a racetrack. I knew it would be a lot of fun, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much fun I was going to have.

I enlisted another trackday virgin to keep me company and we booked our spots in the slowpoke group online. As the day arrived we woke up early and rode down to Eastern Creek Raceway where we were met with a line of bikes and trailers with bikes waiting to get in. Seeing all the bikes in raceglass was an early reminder that I better not stack it on the track as my bike was in road trim. After checking in and suiting up with rented gear from Eastern Creek it was time to head into the pits for a quick talk from the day organisers. They explained the flags and that there was a course available for first timers with a Superbike School instructor which would help us out. First timers would be out on the track first and would follow the Superbike School instructor for a lap around the track which would help teach us the line to take.

“…I had a quick micro-second to peak at the dash and saw that I was already doing in excess of 230km/h.”

The anticipation of riding on the track was building up to a crescendo and the sounds of the bikes in the pit warming up had started to make my nerves tingle with excitement. I borrowed a tool to remove my mirrors from a fellow in the garage who promptly reminded me that his tool was “a boomerang” and better come back to him. I was ready to go. The announcement was made for us newbies to line up and get ready to follow the Superbike School instructor for the first lap around the track.

One by one we were let out. Although the pace was brisk I felt familiar with the speed we were traveling while following the instructor. I knew that as soon as he peeled off after the first lap we would be on our own and we would be able to pursue the dream of anyone with a need for speed – the ability to go as fast as we wanted without fear of persecution from the law. However although there was not a single highway patrol car in sight I would learn very quickly that even the racetrack has a level of respect that a rider must adhere to and how important it is to ride to my limits.