Shannonville 50 years

Glenn/RZ500 said:
When the stator on my GS1000 crapped out, as many did, Robby found one at L&B. It came out of Robbins GS they built. Crompton built a hella` strong engine on my 1000 when he was with Rocket. Has anyone mentioned Tony Russell, he was at Comp. Wheels and built the engine in my `85 GPz900. Was he the force behind Mike Taylor`s race success, I recall so. He was super cool, a good guy.
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Tony Russell, Ron Lefebvre, and a whole bunch of other great builders back in the day for sure.
 
Bobo said:
So the opening scene is Lange Hindle, Rueben Mcmurter and Yvonne Duhamel, just doing laps on the very late Saturday afternoon/early evening. I forget who had cameras on their bikes but they were about the size of a shoebox, they didn’t have them on for the actual race. Yvonne Duhamel is riding Lang’s backup bike and at some point crashed it before the race you see here. Lang not having a backup bike certainly added to the drama and excitement of that weekend.
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I actually spoke with Yvon after his crash on the warm up lap in a huge cloud of dirt and flying bike. All he said,...ahhh...tire too cold, too much front brake. :D
 
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Glenn/RZ500 said:
I actually spoke with Yvon after his crash on the warm up lap in a huge cloud of dirt and flying bike. All he said,...ahhh...tire too cold, too much front brake. :D
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Frank Mrazek said much the same thing after one of his infamous get offs. "My riding was perfect, the tires were sh*t..."
When he rode the CBX he said, "this thing handles like couch." I miss Frank.
 
Bobo said:
That’s not how I remember it. I don’t ever remember an Open Production class. As I said Pro Superbike was limited to 1025cc in Canada, basically a 1000 bored out to clean up the cylinders.I think the idea was to promote sales of the 1000cc class motorcycles which were very popular at the time. For whatever reason amateurs did not have this limit in Canada as anything bigger was a bit of an anomaly at the time.Also, tariffs came into play during the Regan administration in an attempt to protect Harley Davidson’s larger displacement bikes. For example, for a few years we got 750cc sport bikes that were only offered as 700cc’s in the States, exact same bikes other than displacement. In 1982 we got the Katana 1100 where as the US got a Katana 1000.
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Remember 550 production? I watched 2 waves of about 80 bikes in total dive into 1 at Mosport. Probably seventy- eight white 350LC`s and two red GPz 550`s. Great memories.
 
TK4 said:
There most definitely was, a lot of racers would bump up to Superbike after running in Production.
At one point Michel Mercier ran a Suzuki GS1150 they called The Bus.
Frank Mrazek and Steve Dick rode Honda CBXs in Open Superbike.
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I think your right, they created an open production class but that may have been in ‘84. I don’t think there was one in ‘82. As for the CBX, it was 1025cc’s so it would have been able to race in Superbike. Very few were ever raced or were successful in Superbike. Although an engineering marvel and a very cool bike it just wasn’t suited for racing.
 
Bobo said:
I think your right, they created an open production class but that may have been in ‘84. I don’t think there was one in ‘82. As for the CBX, it was 1025cc’s so it would have been able to race in Superbike. Very few were ever raced or were successful in Superbike. Although an engineering marvel and a very cool bike it just wasn’t suited for racing.
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CBX was 1047ccs but we're splitting hairs. The frame left a lot to be desired (no front down tubes) so the steering head was unsupported except where it was bolted to the motor. I watched Mrazek come through 8/9/10 at Mosport and the wheels were never in line the whole time.
 
Bobo said:
I think your right, they created an open production class but that may have been in ‘84. I don’t think there was one in ‘82. As for the CBX, it was 1025cc’s so it would have been able to race in Superbike. Very few were ever raced or were successful in Superbike. Although an engineering marvel and a very cool bike it just wasn’t suited for racing.
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TK4 said:
CBX was 1047ccs but we're splitting hairs. The frame left a lot to be desired (no front down tubes) so the steering head was unsupported except where it was bolted to the motor. I watched Mrazek come through 8/9/10 at Mosport and the wheels were never in line the whole time.
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One thing I remember about the Hondas of that era, I worked on many, they were never the fastest but the fit and finish on them in general was much better than Suzuki and Kawasaki.
 
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TK4 said:
Frank Mrazek said much the same thing after one of his infamous get offs. "My riding was perfect, the tires were sh*t..."
When he rode the CBX he said, "this thing handles like couch." I miss Frank.
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Frank & Jana(sp?) were my neighbors when I was a kid... :)
 
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I just had a funny memory of my first trip to Shannonville in 1981. It was the opening weekend in May 1981. I rode out on the Saturday evening with a friend. Three of my buddies drove out in a Dodge Dart and got lost. It was dark and foggy and they spotted a phone booth in middle of nowhere. They called information and got through to the track. Told the guy they were lost,he asked them to describe where they were.They did so and the guy said “Ok, your at the end of our driveway, keep driving about another 100 yards and you’ll be at the track.That phone booth was there until very recently.
 
Bobo said:
I know I’ve posted this before but if you haven’t seen it it’s really worth the time to watch. I was there that weekend at Shannonville on a pit crew for a friend, Doug Morris, that was racing amateur Superbike. I saw this whole thing being filmed. Lange Hindle and Art Robbins both lived in Scarborough when I was a kid, they were like rock stars.This really was the golden age of Canadian bike racing. The stands and corners were overflowing with spectators, I don’t think they get crowds like that anymore.
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Good times.... I was at that race.. was very young....even did a few laps on a jr50 after all the racing. Was a family affair to go see Uncle Lang race.

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TDhero said:
hard to believe that pavement is 50 years old already
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Wasn`t there some repaving done within the last 10 or so years? Man,.. time gets away on ya. Looking back, the first time I was there was `77. Went with a friend who was delivering parts to someone racing out of Rocket m/c on Oakdale Rd.
 
Glenn/RZ500 said:
Wasn`t there some repaving done within the last 10 or so years? Man,.. time gets away on ya. Looking back, the first time I was there was `77. Went with a friend who was delivering parts to someone racing out of Rocket m/c on Oakdale Rd.
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they did the infield a few years ago, and there was some talk about additional sections being done every year but it never materialized. I was there last summer for a track day and its in a sad state, kind of embarrassing that this is where the national series races
 
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