Lennart on a Laverda

[Tippie]

K181 130 street compound on the rear, K81R 4.10 on the front, sponsorship from the Dunlop distributors, and before Pete the rider was Owen Hughes who was sales manager for Dunlop in Australia iirc. The series 2 bike didn't throw a rod, Ted was warming it up on the bench after the Bathurst race - where it DNFd due to a loose alternator flywheel causing a flat battery in the Arai. The cam chain split link had fallen apart and it stopped dead on valve overlap on RH cylinder at about 3000rpm. And that would have happened at race revs somewhere around the Bathurst track, a terrifying thought, saved by the guardian angel some would say. The worst damage was that it cracked the crankcases from the RH main bearing and no amount of welding at that time seemed to fix it. Pete bought the bike from Ted and fitted the series 1 engine.
Great pic Mark, the bike clearly not in production race trim, still proudly displaying the hole scraped in the ignition cover. Pete never hung off the bike, said that Hailwood didn't so it wasn't necessary, and he scraped everything that could be scraped. On my SF he scraped the megaphone on my SFC 2 into 1, crazy stuff.

 

[redax5]

I actually just presumed his Series 2 engine had thrown a rod, never knew the actual events as Ted and myself had fallen out by that stage, as others found, got ripped off by him and told him to shove his business up his butt

But I did know about the bike later in life as have worked on it thus knew the engine/frame numbers etc
It was sold a couple of years ago out of QLD and went to WA. not heard from it since
Attached photo same bike with Series 1 engine fitted, Boba's carbon kit, GSXR wheels, etc

 

[Tippie]

Good history Red. That chassis did 60.3 secs around the pre bus-stop Lakeside in production trim.

 

[helicopterjim]

I recall the South African race was at Kylami with a monumental straight so a real power circuit and end of the line for the Jota as you say. The Slater's boys had used the original Mirage more recently before the strangled TSS came on the scene.
There was a good article on Rodger Winterburns red 1200 proddy bike in mirage spec in one of the classic mags a few years ago it was timed at 153 on one of the UK tracks so we'll out of standard Jota territory. It could certainly mix it with the GSX on UK tracks but the CB 1100R was on another planet.

Geoff

Hmmmmmm ..... if that is the same Mirage that got turned into a Formula Mirage the next year and is now in my garage ........ well, I guess I need to go find a straight stretch of highway this summer!

Jim

 

[piranha-bro2]

Holy shaez! The hole in that ignition. cover is a pretty good advert for Dunlop; tyres ... K181s and K81Rs. I'd love to see a pic of Pete W cornering with that cover on the deck. I remember you giving me a K81R 4.10x18 front that had been used for a few races. The grip was incredible - one day in the wet I kept getting red lights on Maroondah Hwy Croydon and was braking later and later to try and find the limits of the tyre in a straight line - braking as hard as i dared the deceleration was equivalent to very hard dry weather braking - didn't try it mid-corner in the wet under brakes! But have never forgotten it. Compound is everything - almost.

 

[Andy J]

Back on topic, here's a link to a photo of Lennart on the Jota at the TT in 1980 https://www.ttracepics.com/lennart-backstrom-laverda-1980-formula-tt-20254153.html