National Motorsport Museum

Hi Team,

Back on deck after a recent road trip. Took in the National Motorsport Museum in Bathurst on my way to Nitro Champs at WSID.

For many of you younger forum members, Bathurst is significant not just for car enthusiasts but also for motorcycle riders as it was once the venue for one of the country's major motorcycle races. From memory it was officially called the "Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix" and took place over the Easter long weekend and was first run in the 1930's.

While a great event, towards the end of it's running some of the crowd behaviour became unacceptable to most of the general public and Bathurst residents. Ranging from ordinary to feral. Police and bikers clashed many times and in the end the whole thing was cancelled in the early 1980's. A terrible shame. If you search youtube you will find plenty of great footage including some on-board camera footage!

I spent some time in the Australian Motorsport Museum which is right next to the track on the corner leading onto the start/finish straight (Murray's corner?). There are many great exhibits and it is a wonderful trip down memory lane and, in some cases, a learning experience. If you're ever in Bathurst, you should visit the museum as it has both cars and bikes as well as some other motor racing exhibits.

I will break this thread down to a couple of groups starting with the 2fiddycc bikes.

Cheers

Frank

 

Okay, some of the 2fiddycc bikes at the Australian Motorsport Museum in Bathurst. Interesting side note, Sir Jack Brabham started his racing life on a Velocette! In fact, deep down he was a real motorcycle nut.

I have tried to put all the 250cc bikes in this post, but I've probably missed some which will appear in the following posts. The museum has a wide variety of bikes, so it's not all about bikes raced at Bathurst.

 

Non-2fiddycc bikes...

Plenty of great bikes at the museum. Some with special significance. Wayne Gardner's "claim to fame" Kawasaki; his 500cc NSR Honda plus Castrol 6-hour bikes (another great bike race).

 

Oldies...

 

Odd bits...

Okay, worth listing are the following.

1. Dunstan Rotary Valve engine. Never heard of this before, but someone took a 138 Holden Grey motor (60hp stock) and fitted it with a rotary valve thus eliminating push rods and camshaft. The end result was 200hp and 8,000rpm redline! Impressive given when it was done. I expect @Murdo can tell us how this thing worked and why it never took off?

2. The JUDD engine. Not a big deal, but did you know the engine company that develops Judd was founded by John Judd and, wait for it, Sir Jack Brabham!

3. Home made drag bike. Some individuals just love to challenge themselves. This guy built basically everything on this bike. I can't recall exactly, but I think he even built the engine block?

4. Side cars. Nutters...nuff said.

 

More...

The walls in the museum are full of treasure. The museum also has audio/visual running everywhere, so it's easy to learn enough to sound like an expert when you're writing a thread on your favourite website forum! Greg Hansford on the right.



Cars... plenty of those too

 

Nitro Champs

Great racing at Nitro Champs. 400 Thunder put on a good show for the fans.

Spoke with Peter Allen about his son's Suzuki Pro Stocker which top qualified with a 7.30 sec pass. Bike runs twin spark plugs; four coils; huge Lectron carbs and produces over 350hp at the rear wheel.

Also spotted a Kawasaki C/MB that looked a little second hand as far as build quality went. The stewards thought so too as one of them was inspecting the bike after its first run and the owner (an older gentleman) was explaining how everything held together! Not sure if the official was convinced as I don't recall seeing the bike run again. Plenty of bikes in attendance, so good racing.

 

Yes, lots of great bikes. I wanted to try and get up to the National Motorcycle Museum in Nabiac too, but ran out of time.

 

Murdo, I will make a point of coming up and doing the Nabiac museum with you. Might try and do a drag meet in your area and then a bit of sightseeing.

If the rotary valve head worked so well, why didn't manufacturers embrace it? Would it work on a motorcycle engine?

 

Yes, plenty to see and do in the area...Is the Murdo Museum free entry?

I was thinking of coming up for a couple of weeks around the Gunnedah drags on the 18/19 June, but the Winternationals are on the week before so might be too much to organise. Might look at next Gunnedah drags after this and try to organise a visit around that.

 

With those high compression ratios, would the combustion stroke be approaching self ignition? or is that what pre-ignition is?

 

When's the next Gunnedah drag meet after the 18/19 June event?