Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

Table of contents

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015
Siemer

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

28 pictures

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Lots of Grand Prix machines from BMW, Gilera and Yamaha were chased around the small Hockenheim circuit. A birthday child was also there.

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… You don’t see the BMW RS (# 28) every day.

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The four-cylinder Jawa is really rare. With such a 350, Bill Ivy had his last, tragically ending season in 1969.

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There are seldom more noble hits to be seen than at Hockenheim. So bye and …

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Spectators were also there, at the Hockenheim Classics, but mostly in the nearby paddock.

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World Champion 1955 with H.P. Muller, German champion with Heiner Butz until 1964 – the Sportmax.

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Roughly three dozen of the real sports axes were built. You wise …

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… a modified housing for the tachometer drive.

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One (# 196) was bought by father Hailwood for son Mike. In 1955, the fleet NSU including a replacement engine cost 4,000 marks.

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In 2015 she celebrated her 60th birthday.

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Even today, Rolf Steinhausen makes it clear: the Konig two-stroke is faster than the BMW boxer.

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The Z59 Wenckstern / Fischer team leads the field here in the race.

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The special runs alone were worth the entry. Scott TT (# 513) and …

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… Until next time.

Sports & scene

Events

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015

Review of the Hockenheim Classics 2015
Race, motorcycle!

Content of

Lots of Grand Prix machines from BMW, Gilera and Yamaha were chased around the small Hockenheim circuit. A birthday child was also there. A look back at the Hockenheim Classics 2015.

Fred Siemer

05/11/2015

It is not always easy to keep track of historical races: Here a 700 TZ Yamaha, which once belonged to Jack Findlay, chases behind a Busch-Konig team and one piloted by Rolf Steinhausen NSU Sportmax which Mike Hailwood wore to the first laurel. There a 250cc Suzi from 1969 fights against the 500cc Gilera-Saturno ten years older. Are they allowed to do that? Yes, they should, and in special runs. Those at the Hockenheim Classics, for example, presented at the beginning of September on the short stretch of the traditional GP course.

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The Veteran Vehicle Association (VFV), the Motor Sport Museum Hockenheim and the Amicale Spirit of Speed ​​gave everything to show really prominent and important racing motorcycles, and so it came to a truly lively rendezvous for MZ RE 250 (built in 1976 ) with 500cc Suzuki TGA1 (1984) from ex-champion Franco Uncini, the screeching Kawasaki 500 H1R (1970) with the sawing Konig 500 (1973), from Gilera four-cylinder (1956) with Kreidler Van Veen (1978), the Konigswelle -BMW RS 54 (1955) with the Imperia Grand Prix (1931) or – again – the NSU Sportmax (1955).

It was truly a festival

Again briefly to the overview: Even expert visitors would climb through better if all of the valued participants had stuck on the start numbers that were assigned to them and printed in the program. Now to the conclusion: It was a party, it really was. Over 110 real, really real, mostly GP racing machines were to be admired. Despite the not always clear weather, many on the route, many lined up in the boxes in a visitor-friendly manner. All in all, a more than successful contribution to clearly set the entire event apart from others of its kind.

And now to the Sportmax: The successful German production racer celebrated his 60th birthday this year, which is why the VFV invited and prepared a box. There were about ten or twelve copies met beyond the races, including some really real ones and even one of those five prototypes with which the whole series was prepared in 1954. A wonderful idea that could certainly be transferred to other – and not just German – racers. In any case, reason enough to sit comfortably on the grandstand in the Sachskurve and ponder this German motorcycle myth, superbly supported by courageous Sportmax exercises on the track.

H. P. Muller the Sportmax icon par excellence

We already had Mike the bike, he brought it NSU 1958 again to fourth place in the World Cup. But three years earlier, his compatriots John Surtees and Sammy Miller had relied on the Neckarsulm single in their fight against Italian factory racers. And then against H.P. Muller lost. The Sportmax icon par excellence. Or was it Heiner Butz, who was still racing for German championship honors in 1964? NSU didn’t want to have anything to do with the motorcycle anymore, having closed the racing department eight years earlier when the Japanese were already standing in the doorway with their two- and four-stroke twins.

It will have teased around 30 hp from the two-valve engine with the Ultramax push rod control of the overhead camshaft. They had to do with a bare 115 kilograms, but because of the only four gears, it was advisable to mount the around ten kilograms of aluminum cladding on any halfway fast route. With that, the Sportmax ran over 200. And in Hockenheim they were all represented except for the complete blue whale fairing that was banned in the 50s. Naked, with dolphin cladding, with that almost modern full cladding that supposedly goes back to Hailwood, with the thermally more favorable half-shell. And they pushed so vehemently out of the Sachskurve through the subsequent slight S towards the south curve that there is no doubt: You were a force.

Time never stands still

At the time, NSU produced three dozen of them carefully by hand. They didn’t have much in common with the series Max. Most of them fought in national championships, and there mostly against machines that weren’t a thoroughbred racer from birth. Hockenheim Classics also tried a multi-part teaching unit on this topic: In class H, the VFV brings together all 250 cc racers that were made between 1950 and 1967 as part of its German Historic Motorcycle Championship. But of the 26 registered machines, very few came from the 50s, and anyway: There have been veteran races, there were more 250s at the start, and that was the most popular class of all, and yes, many of the pioneers leave, provided they are still alive , your sweetheart at home.

Some call this upheaval. Change fits better, and the VFV tries to react. Which is why in classes A and B motorcycles whiz through the Sachskurve, which you have just come across at a Honda or Yamaha dealer. Well, not quite, the VFR or GSX-R and FZ have already been around for a good 20 years, and of course they have long since made as great merits as a Motosacoche 500 SS from 1927, a BMW R 51 RS from 1939, a Sarolea 34 B. from 1934. Whether their owners, they start in class E Vintage / Post-Vintage 1920 to 1949, see that as well? Do the viewers all understand that? You don’t always have to understand everything. But there is one thing: time never stands still, we all – even our children – will one day become veterans. So did our children’s motorcycles. The first MotoGP racers were already doing their laps at Hockenheim.

Is there a museum atmosphere in Hockenheim? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that!

So change, from the nostalgic navel gazing to the comprehensive overall presentation, and that is a great change. Which, of course, does not mean that there was a museum atmosphere in Hockenheim. Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that. The smell of oil everywhere, the noise of the engine, the hustle and bustle, happy togetherness. Anyone who doesn’t ask too stupid questions gets a decent answer. Anyone with a little caution can get close to the machines. Really true, and so the majority of the visitors were constantly strolling between the paddock and the pits, visiting the stands rather sporadically. To be very close, that is the great attraction, to come into contact. The organizer played along and opened two boxes for the Honda RC 30 and Egli brand clubs. From the six-cylinder to the Rotax racer, there was a rare and much-visited overview of the work of the brilliant Fritz W. from Switzerland.

Incidentally, he would have had a lot of joy in the races for the Vintage Championship, with which his compatriots enriched the program. There was even an early CB 450 with one of its running gears. In the active days of young Fritz, who once became Swiss champion with a Vincent engine, the wonderful British racers from the 50s and early 60s were more suitable. As is well known, our Dutch neighbors also tend towards them, classic Manx and Seeley G50s fought against early Japanese and brave Desmo-Ducs in their championship races. Really delicious. So actually there was something for everyone at the 38th Hockenheim Classics. And it will certainly still be the case in 38 years.

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