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Pro-Am Revival at Silverstone

Arrabbiata1

Arrabbiata1

Joined Apr 2008
7K Posts | 3K+
Out of Nowhere
One of my abiding memories of early youth is the Yamaha Pro-Am 350LC Series. Identical bikes and tyres, keys in the hat, and an unruly grid of upcoming racers. Inspired me to emulate it on the streets upon a Beckett tuned RD400 which got blown into the weeds by everyone else on Stan Stephens honed 350s. I've always said...introduce this formula into Moto GP for a season and a few 'aliens' would be falling back to earth fairly quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDo1UQqYPqI

Next best thing, revive it in its 250 form as a series of support races at the Silverstone GP and it seems you can't keep the likes of McKenzie, Bosworth, Rymer and McWilliams away.
 
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Man that sort of bike racing looks like a lot of fun aside form the likely Road Rash sort of combat that goes on in one make bike racing.
 
Arrabbiata1 said:
One of my abiding memories of early youth is the Yamaha Pro-Am 350LC Series. Identical bikes and tyres, keys in the hat, and an unruly grid of upcoming racers. Inspired me to emulate it on the streets upon a Beckett tuned RD400 which got blown into the weeds by everyone else on Stan Stephens honed 350s. I've always said...introduce this formula into Moto GP for a season and a few 'aliens' would be falling back to earth fairly quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDo1UQqYPqI

Next best thing, revive it in its 250 form as a series of support races at the Silverstone GP and it seems you can't keep the likes of McKenzie, Bosworth, Rymer and McWilliams away.
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I've seen a few videos of those races and they were always amazing to watch. I think my initial encounter was of it being held at Donnington and I just thought it was the most beautiful track layout I'd ever seen. One of my greatest regrets is not having ever seen a GP race live at Donny. We used to have a GPZ series here in the States. But it wasn't a club racing thing. Kawasaki would bring race prepared GPZ 500s to the Nationals and all the well known AMA Superbike guys would ride them as a side event and they really went at it because nobody had any kind of factory advantage and ego were especially on the line. Great stuff.
 
JPSLotus said:
Man that sort of bike racing looks like a lot of fun aside form the likely Road Rash sort of combat that goes on in one make bike racing.
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Exactly that - it was a full contact sport. .... slipstreaming - because they were road bikes riders would literally grab a tow off the pillion grab rail, then hit the kill switch or grab a handful of their opponents front brake as they came past. Romano Fenati really was born in the wrong country thirty years too late.
 
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I'd pay money to see them all on equal machines.


On an unrealated note:

Well that has to be the shortest lived hiatus in the history of hiatus taking.
 
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Arrabbiata1 said:
Exactly that - it was a full contact sport. .... slipstreaming - because they were road bikes riders would literally grab a tow off the pillion grab rail, then hit the kill switch or grab a handful of their opponents front brake as they came past. Romano Fenati really was born in the wrong country thirty years too late.
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They would really hit the kill switch or grab the opponent's front brake?

LOL what the ....?

There's something hysterical about guys doing that to one another when racing. Did guys even get assessed penalties, or was it just a have-at-it mentality?
 
Arrabbiata1 said:
Exactly that - it was a full contact sport. .... slipstreaming - because they were road bikes riders would literally grab a tow off the pillion grab rail, then hit the kill switch or grab a handful of their opponents front brake as they came past. Romano Fenati really was born in the wrong country thirty years too late.
Click to expand...

Club racers here always pulled that same ..... I was amazed that no one ever crashed as a result.
 
Arrabbiata1 said:
Exactly that - it was a full contact sport. .... slipstreaming - because they were road bikes riders would literally grab a tow off the pillion grab rail, then hit the kill switch or grab a handful of their opponents front brake as they came past. Romano Fenati really was born in the wrong country thirty years too late.
Click to expand...

And Nicolo Canepa
 

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