Charlie Keller, the head of Honda Riders Club of America asked me to write a story about our trip to the Bol D'or Classic.  At first I thought "I'm not a writer, why would he ask me?" Then I realized, Charlie wanted a heartfelt, first hand account of the trip, and here it is.                                                                                Enjoy,  Gigi.

July, 2003

     Our adventure began on a warm afternoon in Paris.  Well, let me back up.  Reg received a call from Patrick Bodden asking him to come to France to race this summer. Patrick is the originator of Heritage Racing which has in the past had good success racing vintage Hondas in AHRMA and other vintage races.  He’s also a journalist for Motorcyclist. The race would be the first Bol D’or Classic at Circuit de Nevers, Magny Cours. It would be put on by the same folks that put on the 24 hours Bol D'or, and it would be over the 3 day weekend ending on Monday, July 14^th – Bastille Day. 

     The race was to be an endurance race, but it would be limited to 3 one hour stints, with a mandatory rider switch halfway through each race.  The last time Reg raced the Bol D’or, it was at LeMans in 1975 and he was riding a BMW and was teamed with Gary Fischer.  As it happened, Patrick had been there as a young fan and remembers it well.

     Summer is the time of year when we conduct our schools around the country, so chances weren’t good that Reg could get away to Europe. As luck would have it, the time period was during our break between CLASS at VIR and Mid Ohio, so it was actually a possibility.  Reg considered it briefly, but it didn’t take long to accept the offer.

     Reg’s teammate was to be Charlie Williams, a Honda of Britain factory rider from the 1970’s and 1980's.  Charlie has a very distinguished record at the Isle of Man with a rocking 9 victories and 19 podium finishes and currently does a radio show on the Isle during the TT.  He also won a number of GP races in his day and had great success campaigning the GB Hondas in world endurance around the time the Vintage racer was in action.  Charlie is a champion in every sense of the word and truly a delight to know.  He currently runs a business in Chester England called Everything But Bikes – at which he sells basically everything a rider could want, except for motorbikes.

     The bike was to be the vintage 1979 Honda RS1000, which is a 1000cc straight 4 cylinder.  This model followed the RCB 1000 which was a world endurance champion during the late 1970s.  This Heritage Racing Team was sponsored by a number of companies including Honda Riders Club of America, and the plan was in the works.

     The RS is owned by Brian O’Shea from Connecticut, who has a cool collection of older race bikes including Reg’s 1978 Superbike Championship winning Vetter Kawasaki, one or two that were Freddie’s, one of Bubba Shobert’s race bikes  and a Schwantz racer.   Patrick contacted Brian who agreed and the team began to come together.   Patrick’s very familiar with France having studied and lived here as a younger man.  He speaks the language well and knew his way around which helped facilitate things greatly as the week went on.

     Back to Paris on a warm afternoon.  Reg and I had spent the previous week in England, visiting some of his relatives and some good friends there as well as touring a few museums and castles. We also stopped by the Ace Cafe in London – a place Reg used to frequent as a teenager in the 1950’s on his Triumph.  It rained a bit while we were there – but like Reg says, you don’t go to England expecting good weather – if you get it, that’s icing on the cake. He swears that’s one of the reasons he left England and came to live here in the US all those years ago.

     We jumped a jet out of Heathrow to Paris and the sun was shining.  It was my first trip to France and I was excited to see Paris.  Our hotel was very near the heart of the city and when we arrived at our hotel, we wasted no time changing and heading out to explore and find lunch – an easy thing to do in the city that practically invented recreational dining.  A sidewalk café, shaded from the warm summer sun, a bottle of wine, and some lucky guesses from the menu (we now know that Gigot is lamb and Canard is duck) made for a lovely lunch.

     Back at the hotel we hooked up with Patrick and met Brian for the first time. We took off to explore a little more of this fascinating city and went over to the Eiffel Tower where we met up with Mark Gardiner, another journalist for Motorcyclist who would accompany us to Magny Cours.  Mark raced the Isle of Man last year and wrote a very moving two part article last fall for the magazine.  Once he finished at the Isle, he packed up and moved to Paris.  He also speaks French so we not only had some really fun company, we were covered when it came to communication. 

     The next day it was off to Magny Cours. Once we got out of Paris (Paris drivers are lets just say: unbelievable!) we were on our way south.  Patrick had arranged a bed and breakfast for us that was about 20 minutes from the track.  He had originally planned on us all arriving together, but a delay getting the bike from the shipper at the airport set him back, and so Reg and I took the rental car and were on our way.  Finding the inn was quite an experience, because we didn’t have a map and we didn’t speak the language, but hey, we made it. 

     The Inn was fantastic.  It was a 14^th century farm house and was run by Madame Claire Raucaz, who we only called Madame (accent on the second syllable!).  She spoke a little broken English, and our French was extremely limited, but we got on very well with her. I’m amazed at the communication that takes place when both want to communicate. The weather was getting warmer but the thick concrete farm house walls kept things nice indoors.  After visiting with her and enjoying some juice after a long days journey  Madame made a call to make sure we could get in for dinner down the road.  She explained that in the country, the restaurant may close by 9, but since the Tour de France was in town, it was open and they could take us.

     I have been a bicyclist and Tour de France fan for many years.  As it happened, the Tour was to be finishing up the day at Nevers (say "nevair"), which is the city the track is in.  We got into town just after the finishing ceremonies, so we didn’t get to see Lance and the boys come in, but we did have dinner in the hotel with Credit Agricole.  But I digress.

     After the bright city lights of Paris, the farm was nice and dark and quiet.  The bed was comfortable, the room was cool -perfect for a good night’s sleep. 

     The next day was Friday and we would meet Charlie and his mechanic Em, and uncrate the bike for the first time.  I mentioned before that Charlie is from Chester. That’s sort of in the Midlands of England, very near Wales and also near Liverpool and the Isle of Man ferry!  Em is a delightful Welshman and as we got to know each other he explained that he actually learned English as a second language - Welsh is his native tongue.

     Now Charlie had raced vintage bikes at Magny Cours for the past couple of years so he was fairly familiar with the track. He semi regularly races a 1974 TZ350 “with great success” adds Em, though the 53 year old rider is usually racing against the 20 somethings on their 10 year newer 2 strokes. Charlie and Em had driven down from England to France for the weekend and had brought the TZ to race in addition to Charlie riding the Honda. This weekend Charlie would finish third on the TZ, a finish he was quite happy with.

     This was the first running of the Bol D’or Classic, and there was some very formidable hardware in attendance including the Goudier Genoud Kawasaki that was a world champion in it’s day during the 70’s.  Our pit was a garage right in Pit lane.  We had watched the F1 car races that had taken place at this track the weekend prior while we were with our friends in England. It was actually really cool to be at this beautiful facility and to be in one of the garages that had maybe been occupied by Michael Schumacher!  Pitted right next to us was a gorgeous Martin Honda from about 1981.  It was ridden by a French champion and another well known French racer.  Next to them was a team of what we saw as a ‘motley crew’ for a number of reasons that I can’t mention here.  Those thoughts would change quickly as the weekend went on…To the other side of us was another gorgeous Honda CB750, a Dick Mann replica.

     But it was our team’s bike that really stood out as a champion, in it’s red, white and blue, all the way from the USA.  Brian did a top notch job restoring the RS to it’s once proud Honda colors.  It is a beautiful bike and drew quite a crowd to our pit the whole weekend including several European Mags and French TV.  It started right up and the excitement grew as Charlie took it out for it’s first laps.

     After viewing a picture of the RS in April, Reg had convinced Brian to move the brakes to the rear of the fork legs.  Reg’s style relies heavily on hard braking and being used to his 954RR and even his DP-Brake HH pad shod VFR800 on the track weekly, he knew this would be a bit of a jump backward, but he used to race single piston calipers, he could do it again.  At least with the brakes behind the legs, there’s better braking – something about the physics of it all. Brian put some new brake pads in, but as it turned out, they put the old ones back in from 1979 and those worked better! 

     Magny Cours is a very fast track.  It’s well over two miles with 3 or 4 long straights which the F1 cars were getting around in about 1minute 15 seconds.  I think Juan Montoya holds the lap record at 1:11 and something. I can't imagine how fast that must be! The fastest bikes at the track that vintage weekend got around in just under 2 minutes and our boys would qualify  4^th (of 50) at about a 2:05 by Charlie.  Reg’s quickest time before the race was around the 2:11 mark. It’s truly amazing the advances in motorcycle technology in the past 25 years.  Any of the stock CLASS School Hondas would probably take first in a Vintage Superbike race.  It wasn’t the horsepower.  They weren’t wanting for that, for example Reg’s 1978 bike dyno’d at 141hp,  but rather the handling and the braking. Reg confided to me later that he was certain he could have gotten his VFR around there in under 2 minutes.  If that’s true, I thought the guys were really riding the RS well. Friday’s practice ended and we all went out for dinner with our newfound friends, had a laugh and a beer or two.  That evening we were joined by Christine, Mark’s girlfriend, and David (Patrick’s brother) and Joan Bodden, owners of Champion Honda in Charleston, SC.  Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  They would complete our pit crew.

     Saturday was more riding and that’s when the qualifying sessions were run.  It was really starting to heat up. We were in the middle of a French heat wave.  The heat in Europe we hear was making international news.  Luckily, we’d stocked up on Evian, fruit and yogurt that morning driving from the village (everything you hear about French yogurt is true.  It’s really good – but then again, everything we ate in France was delicious.  Reg and I had a track hot dog and the bun was, yes, a baguette with a channel up the middle for the meat!)  We were lucky because our garage provided not only shade, but sucked every little bit of breeze through to cool us off nicely.

     The bike was running fair, but Brian, Patrick and Em did a little carburetor work trying to get it to fire better.  It was going through spark plugs at an alarming rate. They got it a bit better, but it still wasn’t quite right.  I in the meantime was quickly becoming knowledgeable in these matters.  I think Brian called me a gearhead.

     Saturday evening was the nighttime practice.  The sizzling 98 degree day was cooling down nicely and we waited and watched a great sunset before the guys took the bike out for some evening practice laps.  Tomorrow would begin the racing. One session in the afternoon and another session from to 9:30 to10:30 at night

     Sunday afternoon the excitement grew tremendously.  The start was the LeMans style start and it was decided that Charlie would do the honors.  Charlie had to stand out in the hot sun fully dressed waiting for the start signal while Reg stood holding the motorcycle for him.  Once it was signaled, the riders ran across the track, jumped on the bike, started it and took off.  It all happened so fast!  We got a great start and Charlie held 4^th.  There were a couple of really fast TZ750s out there and he got passed which put him back to 5^th place.  I was really excited for Reg and for the whole team. Even though it was a vintage race where there was no big prize money, no expensive teams and all that goes with professional racing, the excitement level is the same as when he was racing professionally –  he had his race face on while Charlie flew to a stop a our pit. The rider change went flawlessly and Reg was off.  He rode as hard as he dared (we still had Mid Ohio schools to get back to!) and at the one hour mark, Reg had just been passed by the big Godier Genoud Kawasaki and we finished in 6^th place. We were all ecstatic after finishing the first of our 3 one hour races.  Next race would be tonight at 9:30.

     Another beautiful sunset was giving way to the kind of evening anyone wants to ride.  Reg considered starting, but decided Charlie did such a great job, why change?  Charlie got a perfect start and jammed toward turn 1 in 3^rd place this time! At about the 18 minute mark one of the marshals came over to tell us that Charlie had stopped at the outside of turn 6.  The bike broke!  What a sinking feeling.  And everyone knew that if Charlie didn’t push the bike back to the pit, we were disqualified, which would mean even if the guys fixed the bike, we couldn’t race on Monday.  Pushing the bike back seemed a lot to ask since the turn 6 exit is at the bottom of a long uphill run and Magny Cours has 17 turns!  But there were three things in our favor:  the sun had gone down and it had cooled off, Charlie had coasted halfway up the hill after the bike quit running, and Charlie has stayed pretty fit!  After about 30 minutes, who comes rolling into the garage but Charlie Williams, fully leathered and helmeted pushing the RS back in from turn 6.  Now the question was, what had happened and could Brian, Patrick and Em, in our limited team setup, fix it?

to be continued...

Part ll is here

Go to Part ll 

Charlie Williams,  Reg Pridmore and the Honda RS1000

Reg and I overlooking the river Seine
in front of Notre Dame

This is us in front of Madame's B&B in the French countryside

Charlie Jumps Ballaugh Bridge
at the Isle of Man

That's Charlie (under the umbrella) waiting for the start. I took the picture through the pitwall glass so there's a little reflection there. Reg is holding the bike.

Reg waiting to have a go during the 1st race

Cool down after race 1

This was during evening practice on Saturday.  The twilight made for a beautiful evening.