phil37
Hero member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
here's a posting i did in the "Motodd Laverda" FB pages - tells the whole story!
Just been sent a few shots of the Swedish track day meeting of 1986 by Soren Martensson. We had been invited by Soren Jansson, so myself, business partner Martin Routley and customer turned friend Tony Clark decided to go. We loaded up our bikes onto Tony’s truck – mine – my road/track 1200 180° Martin took his 1000cc 120° MklV prototype and Tony took his Mklll 1000cc 180° road bike and we then took the ferry from Harwich across to Gothenbourg – then onto the track at Karlkskoga. – The weather was really good and ideal for a track day.
Before anyone took to the track (Gelleraisin?) there was a briefing for all the riders. We were all told not to go on a certain part of the track as the surface was very bad – and to keep off the line that you’d want in that place. Of course the briefing was in Swedish, so I didn’t understand it! Out on the 1st lap – I swooped off the “Velodrome” part of the circuit (now banned) and went at full throttle right over the bad surface – this was the 1st and only time I got a “tankslapper” on my Motodd – I ran onto the grass, hit a bump and ended up on my arse. I didn’t hurt myself much, but I’d broken a finger the week before at Cadwell park and I’d tweaked that again. The bike took a fair bit of damage, but we straightened it out and only needed a new fuel tap – one of the very helpful Swedish owners went a long way home and took one off his spare bike for me!
I got going again and had great day, unfortunately Soren M also had a close tarmac inspection and did a fair slice of damage to himself and the bike (750SF) – both are now fully repaired! After the meeting we had been invited to spend a day or two at Soren J’s girlfriends’ (Eva) farm - a great place set by some woods – where, being only about 20 miles from the town of Bofors, she had to close off the road, then she located the shells that were fired from the Bofors factory and landed in the woods, annotating where they landed. Eva’s daughter was an avid horse riding afficianado and ,foolishly, I told her that I used to do a fair bit of riding – so she suggested we went for a ride together on a pair of Icelandic ponies that they had. Immediately she went off at full speed and, determined to not be dropped, I followed suit. In the woods – I wildly bashed at a branch that was having a pop at my head and tweaked my poor old broken finger some more!
All too soon we were back on the ferry and, as Tony pointed out, “Back to the land of the ugly” as the Swedish girls were so much better looking than our tattooed and football shirted selection waiting to get on the ferry at Harwich. I had another race meeting the next weekend and, fortunately, I always take the bike out to make sure all is ok before any meeting and found that, where the fuel tank had been pushed in on the top – rainwater had got into it as the filler cap wasn’t sealing too well so the bike ground to a halt a few yards up the road!
