For your listening pleasure:
Benelli 4 Imola 2010.mp4
I'm a man obsessed......OBSESSED I TELL YA!!! LOL
4eyes - an old racing buddy (Stew Carter) had possession of this Benelli beast at Barbers. Bike is owned by Team Obsolete and Stew got to ride the thing at various events. Believe it or not he found it heavy and not that responsive but he's spoiled by his modern Supermono race bike. I saw this Benelli and it's sister bike raced at Robeling Road in 1995. Jim Redman (multi time World Champ in 60's was riding it) Redman was 72 at the time and looked/acted like 35!! He was very fast and aggressive on the bike and as you can imagine the sound was soul splitting. I also got to see the Honda 250/6 owned by Obsolete fired up by Noby Clark. That was was very wild. They actually ran it around Mid Ohio race track for a couple of laps and the sound of the bike would change as it ran through it's rev band all the way to 18,000. At full song it was terrifying. In Canada we had a Honda 250/6 on display at the Ontario Science Center in Toronto. It had been brought over for Hailwood to race in the Canadian GP in 1967 and was left here afterwards. Tom Faulds, president of Honda Canada, was asked to take it out of the Science Center back in 78 as they wanted something more modern!! Tom ran the bike as an exhibition at the Canadian GP at Mosport, it was raining and the rider crashed the 6 in corner two at high speed, luckily damage was not too great. Honda heard about it and demanded bike returned to Japan, isn't that just completely crazy. Watching the guys prep the bike in the pits (had to heat up the Castrol "R" before pouing it into the bike) and then fire it up, constantly blipping the throttle to keep it running (no idle, no flywheel effect) was amazing. It was cold, wet and yet the excitement in the pits was overpowering. I forget who the lucky bastard was who got to ride it but I'll never forget the sound. Thanks to Tom, a whole new generation got to hear the greatest motorcycle design ever made.