The Wall of Death

.



The Wall of Death (AKA Motordrome) is a carnival sideshow featuring a drum- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder, ranging from 20 to 36-feet in diameter, in which stunt motorcyclists ride and carry out tricks. Derived directly from US motorcycle boardtrack (motordrome) racing in the early 1900s, the very first carnival motordrome appeared at Coney Island amusement park (New York) in 1911.



The following year portable tracks began to appear on traveling carnivals and in 1915, the first "silodromes" with perpendicular walls were seen. These motordromes with perfectly straight walls were soon dubbed the "Wall of Death." This carnival attraction became a staple in the US outdoor entertainment industry with the phenomenon reaching its zenith in the 1930s with more than 100 motordromes on traveling shows and in amusement parks.



In 2004, six or seven of these motorcycle shows were still touring the US. The first known Wall of Death in the UK appeared in 1929 at Southend.



The audience views from the top of the drum, looking down. The riders start at the bottom of the drum, in the center, and ascend an initial ramped section until they gain enough velocity to drive horizontally to the floor, usually in a counter-clockwise direction (the physical explanation behind this act is found at Banked turn and The turning car.) This act is famous in the United Kingdom, and often is seen at fairs.



In the 2000s, there remain only a few tours of the wall of death; the most notable of which is "The Wall of Death World Tour", created and run by the Fox family. This touring group uses the original American Indian Motorcycles, which have been used since around the 1920s. For the most of the year, this group is based at Wilburton but ride every year in the Great Dorset Steam Fair. In India, cars are also used.



A similar act called the "Globe of Death" has the riders looping inside a wire mesh sphere rather than a drum. This form of motorcycle entertainment had a separate and distinct evolution from carnival motordromes and derived from bicycle acts or "cycle whirls" in the early 1900s.

A good website : http://www.wall-of-death.co.uk/

Read more »

Steve Dunn THE Artist

Steve Dunn was born in the late 1950s and grew up in the bustling University City of Cambridge. He was a pupil at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, commonly known then as 'The County'. His favourite subject then was art and in his final year he won the school art prize for his work.

"Manx Norton"

The Manx Norton was one of the most successful racing motorcycles of the late forties, fifties and early sixties. An icon of British bike design.

Read more »

Arnold Palmer The King

*



When i was a teenager this guy was the king of the fairways. He almost win every single tournament all over the world and open the doors to modern professional golfers as Tiger Woods today.
Palmer was an icon , a great guy and a real Pro. I found those great Life pictures about him and wanted to share his story with you

Arnold Daniel Palmer (born September 10, 1929) is an American golfer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf. He has won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back to 1955. Nicknamed "The King," he is one of golf's most popular stars and its most important trailblazer because he was the first star of the sport's television age, which began in the 1950s. He was part of golf's "Big Three" along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player who are widely credited with popularizing the sport around the world.
Palmer won the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and in 1974 was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.









Palmer's charisma was a major factor in establishing golf as a compelling television event in the 1950s and 1960s, setting the stage for the popularity it enjoys today. His first major championship win at the 1958 Masters cemented his position as one of the leading stars in golf, and by 1960 he had signed up as pioneering sports agent Mark McCormack's first client. In later interviews, McCormack listed five attributes that made Palmer especially marketable: his good looks; his relatively modest background (his father was a greenkeeper before rising to be club professional and Latrobe was a humble club); the way he played golf, taking risks and wearing his emotions on his sleeve; his involvement in a string of exciting finishes in early televised tournaments; and his affability.



Palmer is also credited by many for securing the status of The Open Championship (British Open) among US players. After Ben Hogan won that championship in 1953, few American professionals had travelled to play in The Open, due to its travel requirements, relatively small prize purses, and the style of its links courses (radically different from most American courses). Palmer was convinced by his business partner Mark McCormack that success in the Open - to emulate the feats of Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and Hogan before him - would truly make him a global sporting star, not simply a leading American golfer. In particular, Palmer travelled to Scotland in 1960, having already won both the Masters and U.S. Open, to try to emulate Hogan's feat of 1953, of winning all three in a single year. He failed, losing out to Kel Nagle by a single shot, but his subsequent Open wins in the early 1960s convinced many American pros that a trip to Britain would be worth the effort, and certainly secured Palmer's popularity among British and European fans, not just American ones.





Palmer won seven major championships:

The Masters: 1958, 1960, 1962, 1964
U.S. Open: 1960
The Open Championship: 1961, 1962

Palmer's most prolific years were 1960-1963, when he won 29 PGA Tour events in four seasons. In 1960, he won the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year and Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award. He built up a wide fan base, often referred to as "Arnie's Army", and in 1967 he became the first man to reach one million dollars in career earnings on the PGA Tour. By the late 1960s Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player had both acquired clear ascendancy in their rivalry, but Palmer won a PGA Tour event every year up to 1970, and in 1971 he enjoyed a revival, winning four events.



Palmer won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average four times: 1961, 1962, 1964, and 1967. He played on six Ryder Cup teams: 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1971, and 1973. He was the last playing-captain in 1963 and captained the team again in 1975.
Palmer was eligible for the Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) from its first season in 1980, and he was one of the marquee names who helped it to become successful. He won ten events on the tour, including five senior majors.
Palmer won the first World Match Play Championship in England, an event which was originally organised by McCormack to showcase his stable of players. Their partnership was one of the most significant in the history of sports marketing. Long after he ceased to win tournaments, Palmer remained one of the highest earners in golf due to his appeal to sponsors and the public.




In 2004, he competed in The Masters for the last time, marking his 50th consecutive appearance in that event. After missing the cut at the 2005 U.S. Senior Open by twenty-one shots he announced that he would not enter any more senior majors. Since 2007, Palmer has served as the honorary starter for the Masters. He retired from tournament golf on October 13, 2006, when he withdrew from the Champions Tours' Administaff Small Business Classic after four holes due to dissatisfaction with his own play. He played the remaining holes but did not keep score. Palmer's legacy was reaffirmed by an electrifying moment during the 2004 Bay Hill Invitational. Standing over 200 yards from the water-laden 18th green, Palmer, who is known for his aggressive play, lashed his second shot onto the green with a driver. The shot thrilled his loyal gallery and energized the excitable Palmer. He turned to his grandson and caddie, Sam Saunders, and gave him a prolonged shimmy and playful jeering in celebration of the moment.



Palmer has had a diverse golf related business career including owning the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, which is the venue for the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational (renamed from the Bay Hill Invitational in 2007), helping to found The Golf Channel, and negotiating the deal to build the first golf course in the People's Republic of China. This led to the formation of Palmer Course Design in 1972, which was renamed Arnold Palmer Design Company when the company moved to Orlando Florida in 2006. Since 1971 he has owned Latrobe Country Club, where his father used to be the club professional. Palmer's ability to win with boldness and charisma was the single biggest factor in the game's explosive growth after 1960.

In 2000, Palmer was ranked the sixth greatest player of all time in Golf Digest magazine's rankings.
He now resides near his golf course, Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Country Club and Lodge, in Orlando, Florida.

Read more »

Daytona 1971

Carruthers (73), Jack Findlay (70)

Dick Mann (4), Mike Hailwood (20), Gary Fischer (110)

Cal Rayborn (14), Roger Reiman (78)

Carruthers (73)

Cal Rayborn (14) and Don Droud (83)

Dick Man on B.S.A

Read more »

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

*


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of quality. The 1974 book describes, in first person, a 17-day motorcycle journey across the United States by the author and his son Chris, joined for the first nine days by close friends John and Sylvia Sutherland. The trip is punctuated by numerous philosophical discussions, referred to as Chautauquas by the author, on topics including epistemology, ethical emotivism and the philosophy of science.



The book sold over 4 million copies in twenty-seven languages and was described by the press as "the most widely read philosophy book, ever." It was originally rejected by 121 publishers, more than any other bestselling book, according to the Guinness Book of Records.





The title is an incongruous play on the title of the book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. In its introduction, Pirsig explains that, despite its title, "it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either."

In a 1974 interview with NPR, Pirsig stated that the book took him four years to write. During two of these years, Pirsig continued working at his job of writing computer manuals. This caused him to fall into an unorthodox schedule, waking up very early and writing from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m., then eating and going to his day job. He would sleep during his lunch break and then go to bed around 6 in the evening. Pirsig joked that his coworkers noticed that he was "a lot less perky" than everyone else.

In the book, Pirsig explores the meaning and concepts of "quality". In the sequel (Lila: An Inquiry into Morals), Pirsig expands his exploration of Quality into a complete metaphysics which he calls The Metaphysics of Quality. As the title suggests, much of the Metaphysics of Quality has to do with a non-intellectualizing, non-conceptualizing, Zen-like direct viewing of the universe. Yet Pirsig departs from Eastern thinking by arguing that Western rationality is just as important in seeking understanding. Pirsig's thesis is that to truly experience quality one must embrace both and apply them as befits the requirements of the situation. According to Pirsig, this would avoid a great deal of frustration and dissatisfaction common to modern life.

In the book, the Narrator explains his friend John Sutherland's "romantic" approach to life, whereby he refuses to study and learn how to maintain his own expensive new BMW motorcycle. John simply hopes for the best with his bike, and when problems do occur he becomes extremely frustrated and is forced to rely on professional mechanics to repair it. In contrast, the Narrator has an older motorcycle which he is mostly able to diagnose and repair himself through the use of rational problem solving skills. The Narrator exemplifies the "classical" approach to life.



In another example, Pirsig shows us how we should pay attention and learn: when the Narrator and his friends came into Miles City, Montana, he had noticed that the engine "idle was loping a little", a sign that the fuel/air mixture was too rich. The next day he is thinking of this as he is going through his ritual to adjust the valves on his cycle's engine, because it "has picked up a noise". In the process, he notes that both spark plugs are black, another sign of rich mixture. He solves the puzzle as he is thinking about the feel-good-higher-altitude-mountain-air; the altitude is causing the engine to run rich. New jets are purchased, and installed, and with the valves adjusted, the engine runs well. His cycle begins coughing and almost quits when they get into the mountains of Montana. This is a more severe altitude problem, but he knows it will go away when they get back to lower altitude. He does adjust the carburetor to prevent over heating on the way down.

With this, we see the book details two types of personalities: those who are interested mostly in gestalts (romantic viewpoints, such as Zen, focused on being "in the moment", and not on rational analysis), and those who need to know details, the inner workings, mechanics (classic viewpoints with application of rational analysis, vis-a-vis motorcycle maintenance) and so on.



The Sutherlands represent an exclusively romantic attitude toward the world. The Narrator initially appears to prefer the classic approach. It later becomes apparent that he understands both viewpoints and is aiming, not for the middle ground, but for the necessary ground that includes both. He understands that technology, and the "dehumanized world" it carries with it, appears ugly and repulsive to a romantic person. He knows that such persons are determined to shoehorn all of life's experience into the romantic view. Pirsig is capable of seeing the beauty of technology and feels good about mechanical work, where the goal is "to achieve an inner peace of mind". Zen and the Art demonstrates that motorcycle maintenance may be dull and tedious drudgery or an enjoyable and pleasurable pastime; it all depends on the inner attitude, or lack thereof.

Pirsig shows that rationality's pursuit of "Pure Truths" derives from the first Greek philosophers who were establishing the concept of truth, against the opposing force of "The Good". He argues that although rational thought may find truth (or The Truth) it may not be valid for all experiences. Therefore, what is needed is an approach to viewing life that is more varied and inclusive and has a wider range of application. He makes a thorough case that originally the Greeks did not distinguish between "Quality" and "Truth" – they were one and the same – and that the divorce was, in fact, artificial (though needed at the time) and is now a source of much frustration and unhappiness in the world, particularly overall dissatisfaction with modern life.

Pirsig aims towards a perception of the world that embraces both sides, the rational and the romantic. This means encompassing "irrational" sources of wisdom and understanding as well as science, reason and technology. In particular, this must include bursts of creativity and intuition that seemingly come from nowhere and are not (in his view) rationally explicable. Pirsig seeks to demonstrate that rationality and Zen-like "being in the moment" can harmoniously coexist. He suggests such a combination of rationality and romanticism can potentially bring a higher quality of life.

Read more »

A place to stay in New-York City

Courtesy of : thecoolhunter

in the heart of Tribeca, Five Franklin Place is destined be the epitome of luxury residences. The 20-storey building will contain 55 one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units that will be set up as duplex lofts on the lower floors; single-level city residents above; plus three triplex penthouses each with a rooftop terrace and serviced by private internal lifts.

The building itself, designed by Dutch architect Ben van Berkell of UNStudio, will be wrapped in a series of horizontal black metallic bands — each of which ungulates as it curves around and hugs the frame of the structure. The façade is apparently a direct tribute to the original 19th-century built form of cast iron that shaped lower Manhattan — and the metallic surface will reflect light while highlighting the magnificence of the neighbouring buildings



The building’s façade is not merely about aesthetics, as the bands will also create shading from the daylight, deflect heat, and guarantee every residence will have the highest degree of privacy, and simultaneously frame unparalleled views out across Manhattan.

The Loft Residences on the levels have a double-height living area that maximises the light entering the space. The height of the great room continues on through a gallery where a white lacquered library wall ascends up into the second level.



The upper-tier City Residences feature integrated terraces off the main living areas, and all units are custom-fitted with B&B Italia kitchens and built-ins throughout. The master bathrooms feature a circular sliding wall that allows the bathroom to become part of the bedroom and share its spectacular city views.

And for those at the top, the five ultra-luxurious Sky Penthouses are unmatched in practically every aspect. Again, B&B Italia has masterfully crafted the space, including the kitchen. Sweeping views from every room, even the master bathroom, automatically heighten the occupants’ awareness of their place in the cityscape and the surrounding environment.



The skylines of our cities are rapidly changing — ingeniously designed buildings are competing for our attention. But architectural beauty alone is not going to provide the type of service we’re growing accustomed to expecting after spending millions on luxury lifestyle. We feel that the rise of luxury residences has only just begun — and we want to know all about it. If you are aware of luxury residences we should investigate, please let us know.
By Andrew J Wiener.

Read more »

Johnny Cecotto

Alberto "Johnny" Cecotto (born January 25, 1956 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver.

The son of Italian immigrants, he was one of the few people to have competed in both motorcycle and Formula One Grand Prix.

Motorcycle racing history

Cecotto had won the Venezuelan National Championship in 1973 and 1974 when he rose to international prominence at the 1975 Daytona 200 motorcycle race with one of the more inspired rides in the history of the event. Competing as an unknown rookie aboard an unmodified Yamaha TZ 700 sponsored by Yamaha's Venezuelan importer, and starting from last place on the grid, Cecotto showed impressive riding ability by passing almost the entire field while working his way up to third place.



Johnny Cecotto Following Daytona, Cecotto arrived in Europe to compete in the Grand Prix series, where he continued his meteoric rise by winning the 250cc and 350cc races in his first ever Grand Prix at the season opening round in France. He went on to become the youngest World Champion ever at nineteen years of age when he defeated the defending champion, Giacomo Agostini for the 1975 350cc World Championship.

© foto Arthur Thill

In 1976, Cecotto returned to Daytona, now with full support from the Yamaha factory racing team. This time, he was victorious, coming out on top after a race-long battle with American Champion Kenny Roberts.
In the 1976 Grand Prix season, he lost his 350cc crown in a tight battle with Harley-Davidson mounted Walter Villa. At the beginning of the 1977 season, he was badly injured in a deadly four rider accident at the Austrian Grand Prix that claimed the life of Swiss rider Hans Stadelmann. Cecotto never seemed to come to grips with the 500cc Yamaha, having had a series of crashes which hindered his progress. Cecotto finished third in the 1978 500cc title chase and added the Formula 750 World Championship to his titles. He suffered a badly broken kneecap at the 1979 Austrian Grand Prix at the Salzburgring and missed half the season. Cecotto soldiered on through the 1980 Grand Prix season but his numerous injuries curtailed his motorcycle racing career. After the 1980 season, he decided to quit motorcycling to pursue an auto racing career. He retired with twelve 500cc pole positions in 27 starts, giving him one of the highest pole position per start ratios in motorcycle Grand Prix history.

Automobile racing history

Cecotto made his four wheeled debut with Minardi in the 1980 Formula Two Championship. In the 1982 Formula Two season, driving for the March-BMW team, he won three races and finished the season tied for first place with his team-mate Corrado Fabi but, was relegated to runner up by the tie breaker system. Nevertheless, his performance garnered enough attention that he was offered a seat in Formula One.

Cecotto at the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, his last Formula One race.In Formula One, Cecotto participated in 23 races, debuting on March 13, 1983 for the Theodore Racing team. He had a promising start as he scored a sixth place in only his second race, however, the team suffered from lack of funding and he was forced to sit out the final two rounds. For the 1984 season, he joined the Toleman racing team with Ayrton Senna as his team mate. While qualifying for the British Grand Prix, he crashed heavily, breaking both of his legs which effectively ended his Formula One career.

After recovering from his injuries, Cecotto returned to competition in the flourishing Touring Car category, winning the 1986 Guia Race held during the Macau Grand Prix. Cecotto competed in a CiBiEmme BMW M3 alongside Gianfranco Brancatelli in the 1987 James Hardie 1000 - Australia's premier touring car race held at Mount Panorama at Bathurst NSW. In 1989 he captured the Italian Touring Car Championship. From 1988 to 1992 Cecotto competed in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM, German Touring Car Championship). Driving a Schnitzer Motorsport BMW M3, he finished as runner up in the 1990 season. The unknown youngster Michael Schumacher, who drove for the Mercedes junior team and participated only as a guest, probably cost him the championship by crashing into Cecotto's car during the first lap. In 1994 and 1998 he won the German Super Tourenwagen Cup Championship for BMW. In 1995 he raced in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for BMW. In 2001 and 2002, he switched to the Irmscher Opel Omega and won the German V8 Star Championship two years running.



Cecotto currently devotes most of his time to supporting the racing career of his son, Johnny Cecotto, Jr.

Read more »

Georges Jobé FIM motocross world champion

¨





Georges Jobé (born January 6, 1961) is a former five-time FIM motocross world champion from Belgium. In addition, Jobé also won several Belgian national motocross championships in a professional motocross career that spanned from 1979 to 1992.
Jobé was crowned FIM World 250cc Motocross Champion in 1980 and 1983, and later went on to be crowned FIM World 500cc Motocross Champion in 1987, 1991 and 1992 . In 1988, having been crowned World Champion in the 500cc class, Jobe competed in the 125cc World Championship to attempt to win the "Triple Crown" (FIM 125, 250 and 500cc world titles). He was unsuccessful, with countryman Eric Geboers achieving the feat by winning the 500cc World championship in that same year (Geboers having previously won world 125 and 250cc titles). Geboers was a member of the victorious Belgian team at the 1980 Motocross des Nations.








Jobé's 1987 500cc championship was notable as he won riding a "private" Honda CR500. Most of his rivals were on the official "factory" teams of Honda, Kawasaki or KTM)



Hawkstone Park 1984

Jobé is famous for an incident that occurred during the 1984 British 500cc Motocross Grand Prix, held at Hawkstone Park, Shropshire, England. In 1984, the Hawkstone Park circuit included a large "double jump" (before they were customary on top motocross circuits). Few riders had the courage to attempt to clear the jump during practice, let alone during the actual race. However, during the second race of the Grand Prix, Jobe passed rival André Malherbe by clearing the double jump, physically jumping over his rival in the process. Photographer Nick Haskell captured the moment, and the image of Jobé flying over Malherbe, with the crowd cheering on is often seen by some as one of motocross's most iconic images.

Professional Honours

* FIM World Motocross Champion

250cc 1980, 1983 500cc 1987, 1991, 1992

* Belgian National Motocross Champion

250cc 1978,1980,1981,1982,1983 500cc 1984,1989

* Italian National Motocross Champion

500cc 1986

* FIM Trophee des Nations

1980, Member of Team Belgium

Read more »

Ali Boma ye Zaire 1974

The Rumble in the Jungle was a historic boxing event that took place on 30 October 1974, in the Mai 20 Stadium in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). It pitted then world Heavyweight champion George Foreman against former world champion and challenger Muhammad Ali.

The event was one of Don King's first ventures as a professional boxing promoter. He managed to get both Ali and Foreman to sign separate contracts saying they would fight for him if he could get $5 million to be their pay. However, King did not have the money. So he began looking for an outside country to sponsor the event. Zaire's flamboyant president Mobutu Sésé Seko asked for the fight to be held in his country, eager for the publicity such a high-profile event would bring. King had pulled together a consortium that included a Panamanian company called Risnelia Investment, the Hemdale Film Corporation, a British company founded by film producer John Daly and the actor David Hemmings, Video Techniques Incorporated of New York and Don King Productions. Although King is most closely associated with the fight it is Hemdale and Video Techniques Inc., with whom King was a director, who were the official co-promoters of the fight.

Read more »

The Sunday Movie

Indian Dunes came on the scene back when times were wild and crazy. War raged in Viet Nam, Dirt Harry ruled at the box office, and the mini bike was built.

Read more »

Bike Exif

Men you got to check this website its cool and you will find amazing pictures for every single taste.



Big Moon’s Yamaha SR400 wowed us a couple of months ago, but the guys at the Okayama-based shop have just gone one better. This street tracker based on Yamaha’s iconic XS650 is just perfect, from the curve of the bars to the tiny low-set indicators, and the seat sitting just inside the frame at the rear. There’s no sign of full specs, but we suspect that bhp has been raised from the usual mid-50s. If you added disc brakes and a mini-fender to the front, it’d make the ideal commuter bike. [Via Speed Junkies.]

The Website : Bike EXIF

Read more »

A Tribute to Gaston Rahier

*

picture courtesy of : www.pbase.com

Gaston Rahier (February 1, 1947 in Chaineux, Belgium – February 8, 2005 in Paris, France) was a motocross racer from Belgium. He was three-time FIM World Champion in the 125cc division, claiming the title in 1975, 1976 and 1977 . He later went on to race in and win the famous Paris-Dakar rally for BMW motorcycles, in 1984 and 1985. At the end of that last year he was named, alongside long-distance runner Vincent Rousseau, as the Belgian Sportsman of the Year. Rahier is a Paris-Dakar legend, once referred to as "The little man with the giant reputation." Rahier died in Paris after a long disease.

Picture courtesy of : picasaweb.google.com

Picture courtesy of : www.alpaide.be

Read more »

Fast Freddie

*


Freddie Spencer (born December 20, 1961 in Shreveport, Louisiana), known by the nickname Fast Freddie, is an American former World Champion motorcycle racer. Spencer is regarded as one of the greatest motorcycle racers of the early 1980s. He was a racing prodigy who began racing at the age of four, competing in dirt track events near his hometown of Shreveport. Spencer's preferred racing number was 19.
After winning the 1978 250cc U.S. National Road Racing Championship, American Honda signed Spencer to ride for their Superbike team. He gained international prominence at the 1980 U.S. versus Britain Trans-Atlantic Match races when he won two legs, defeating World Champions Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene in the process. In 1981, he split his time between the AMA Superbike series, and the European Grand Prix circuit, helping Honda develop the exotic, oval-cylindered NR500 four-stroke Grand Prix bike.



By 1982 , he had been promoted full time to Honda's Grand Prix team, who by then had given up on the NR500 and developed the NS500 three cylinder, two-stroke. In 1983, Spencer won his first 500cc World Championship, becoming the youngest person to win the title. The 1983 season would be remembered as one of the most dramatic title chases in the history of Grand Prix racing; Honda's Spencer and Yamaha's Kenny Roberts fought back and forth for the points lead with each of them earning six victories. The season culminated at the penultimate round in Sweden when the two riders collided on the last lap. Roberts ran off the track leaving Spencer to sprint to the finish line and victory. Roberts won the last race but Spencer finished second, securing his first world title by two points.



In 1984 , Honda developed a radically new V4 NSR-500 that featured the fuel tank under the engine and the expansion chambers under a false tank above the engine. Teething problems and injuries from crashes hindered Spencer's defense of his crown and he was relegated to fourth place in the championship. In spite of this, he still managed to win 5 times that year on the NS500 three cylinder machine.



1985 proved to be an historic year for Spencer. He began the season by winning the prestigious season opening Daytona 200, including the 250cc and Superbike classes, making him the only rider to win all three divisions in a single year. Spencer also competed in both the 250cc and 500cc Grand Prix World Championships, winning both titles in the same year, and becoming the only rider in history to accomplish the feat. His career was cut short by wrist injuries that some believe were caused by the physical strain of competing in two championships during a single season. After his historic 1985 season, Spencer never won another Grand Prix race. He retired from Grand Prix racing at the beginning of 1988, although there were a couple of abortive GP comeback attempts, in 1989 and 1993. He returned to race in the AMA Superbike Championship in the 1990s, winning three races. He was eighth in 1991, riding a Honda for Two Brothers Racing, and went one better in 1992. In 1995 he raced a Fast By Ferracci Ducati to ninth, and at the end of the year took over the works Ducati from Mauro Lucchiari in Superbike World Championship.



Spencer raced under several different marques during his racing career, winning his first Superbike National Championship race aboard a Kawasaki, but he is most closely associated with Honda and his partnership with Grand Prix tuner, Erv Kanemoto. He won all three of his world titles on Hondas with Kanemoto as head mechanic. Spencer had a short stint with the Agostini Yamaha team and ended his career on a Ducati in the U.S. National Championship.



Spencer now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where he operates a successful motorcycle riding school for novice and advanced riders. As of October 23,2008 it appears as though Spencer's riding school has ceased operations

Read more »