[Dave] I'm Dave, National Sprint Association, and we're just going to show you around some
of the bikes we have on our stand here at Shepton Mallet.
The one in front of us is a Kawasaki KH500 which has had a lot of modifications.
It is much lowered, it's lengthened.
There's different cylinder heads, different cylinders, and all sorts of modifications
to make it quite a bit quicker than the standard bike which is rapid for a road bike anyway.
[Biker owner] Yeah it's a '75 H1500.
I bought the frame about five years ago now.
Slowly rebuilt it into what it is now.
It's been a drag bike since the sort of late 80s when it was built by a drag racer called
Martin Bishop, and then it was campaigned for a few years, and then shelved.
It's back to life!
[Interviewer] Lovely well thank you ever so much and again without more messing around we've got some
more different noise.
[Interviewer ] Lovely thank you very much.
[Dave] Next we have a GSX1100 Suzuki which has been taken out to 1425.
It's got a much lengthened swinging arm, highly modified engine, a different fuel system,
and a nitrous system to give it a bit more go at the top end of the track.
Here we have a replica of a Benelli 4.
This was built in about 1980.
It's 500cc.
A replica of a Grand Prix bike, and this has been built over the years.
Partially built in about 1980 and finished in the last 12 months.
Now running and very noisy.
This Honda is based on a CB250RS road bike.
This has had various modifications. Initially built for hill climbing, and very light, affordable,
easy to build bike, and an ideal starting bike for either hill climbs or sprints.
Over on the stand up here
we have a development of a BSA Bantam. This was built by The Hogan Brothers sometime
in the late 50s. The Hogan Brothers were people who built very fast racing Bantams, 125s.
This is a 250 twin. They got two Bantam engines and split them down the middle
and welded it back together and made a 250 twin. They chopped the gearbox off and put
a different BSA gearbox on there. There's very long inlet tracks which don't normally
work on a 125, but very interesting and a unique machine. Here we have
a Villiers based bike. It's PB Villiers. It was used in the Isle of Man in various
race circuits, and it's a very interesting machine, but unfortunately somewhat outclassed
in its day by the Yamahas coming along. Unfortunately at the moment the classic classes don't allow,
they allow them, but there's not a suitable class for it in which to
be competitive. It's a Velocette MSA, MAC sorry, 350.
This started out life as a road bike, all sorts of modifications. Lightened a lot. All sorts
of Velocette bits mainly reached the end of its development, and a very interesting bike. Much
lighter than the standard MAC, and a good classic bike to ride. This is a 4 valve Rudge from
the 30s. There weren't very many 4 valve bikes at all during the 30s. The Rudge was
particularly good, and they were quite powerful and very successful in the Isle of Man, some
years ago. And this is a nicely used example of something that's not been molly coddled
and it's been used properly. This began life as a Honda Blackbird. This has been modified
a lot. Longer swinging arm, nitrous system, and quite a budget open class racer. The Honda
Blackbird we were looking at just now is owned by Paul Taylor, who is the father of
this Greeves Silverstone owner. The Greeves Silverstone was a racer that anyone could buy back in
the 60s and into the 70s, and was a very popular over-the-counter race bike. The next one, this
scooter, is owned by the son of the Greeves owner, for Jack Taylor who has been sprinting
a couple of years now, and he's just moved up a class from the basic class, which is this
one, which we start people at eight years old. So we've got the two sons, father and grandfather
in a row. This engine is a Jawa based speedway engine originally. It's now got a supercharger
on it. It runs on methanol. And this sort of machine is a very fussy thing
to use. Very powerful but very, very difficult to maintain and keep running properly. As you
can see it's quite low, it's long. We've got some bars on the back to stop it going over
backwards. And not for the faint-hearted or the inexperienced. This is a Sledgehammer. Alex
just asked me about the power of this bike, and I had to tell him that normally these
won't go on a dyno because the engine won't last long enough, it'll get overheated. So we
never know really what the power of any bike is. So that's a look around the stand and the
sort of bikes that we use. We do use other types of bikes sometimes, normal road bikes.
If you'd like to know more please look on our website. Everybody is welcome. You
can come and try us on a day license and have a day entry.