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Moto blog

I can die happy!

As an eighteen year old Kenny Roberts was my bike racing God.  I loved Barry Sheene but as a Yamaha FS1E rider I always wanted the little American to win simply because his bike resembled mine.  The coverage of Grand Prix in the late seventies was sketchy but I clearly remember watching the epic Sheene/Roberts battle unfold at the Silverstone GP on my council estate telly.  The Dutchman, Wil Hartog was hanging in there for a while but as the laps unfolded it became a two way battle with Sheene looking favourite to win.  Sheene lost the most time as the pair lapped a certain George Fogarty so my hero Roberts eventually won by just three hundredths of a second.  I’m not sure what happened next but being a Sunday we would no doubt be skidding around later in the day at the Pines chippie pretending to be Roberts and Sheene.  Fast forward thirty four years and a boyhood fantasy came true as I headed out on Chris Wilson’s 1980 Roberts machine for the Barry Sheene tribute laps at last weekend’s Moto GP.  It crackled into life instantly and felt as sharp as any of the more modern 500s I used to race.  The temperature gauge had a maximum marker on 60 degrees so to begin with I was nervous as it didn’t move but being a hot day (although still keeping my hand on the clutch) I convinced myself it wasn’t working.    The bike felt tiny, not helped by the fact I only just squeezed into my 1989 Marlboro Yamaha leathers.  It still felt rapid though as I played out the 1979 classic in my head while getting tucked in down the Hanger straight.  Steve Parrish was also out there on one of Barry’s 500cc Heron Suzukis so we did our best to copy the famous last lap at Woodcote Corner where Sheene came so close to winning his home GP. As a lad I would have said the chances of me riding round Silverstone on a GP winning Kenny Roberts machine were zero, but in the words of Gabrielle, dreams can come true!

Yamaha FZ-07 Available Stateside In July

Hot on the heels of the stellar FZ-09 comes its smaller displacement counterpart, the FZ-07. Priced at $6990, the new twin-cylinder FZ is set to hit dealer showroom floors this July as a 2015 model. Already available in foreign markets (our Canadian correspondent, Costa Mouzouris, reviewed the FZ-07 here) we’ve been awaiting word from Yamaha of US-bound FZ-07s with bated breath.

Our Magnificent seven

Remember to dust your Union Jacks down if you happen to be visiting any Grand Prix this year as we have no less than seven youngsters to cheer on in the junior Moto GP classes. I don’t think we’ve ever had this many ‘yoofs’ in the GP paddock so let’s hope they can do the business and bring an end to our long drought of Grand Prix titles. And that could be soon as Scott Redding is already a hot favourite for the 2011 Moto 2 championship on his Marc VDS Suter machine.