There was a great turnout of Indian motorcycles for this meet last weekend. This was largely due to the efforts of Paddy Snowden. Paddy put a big effort into making sure a large group of Australians came over with road and race bikes to sample our racing and the wonderful South Island roads. He also made sure there was plenty of Kiwi opposition.

The Australians did 1800 kilometers of road miles during the week preceding the meeting, with almost perfect weather and their bikes held up very well. They had only a couple of minor glitches. They loved the roads and the scenery and our statues!

Video evidence showed lascivious and lewd late night activities with concrete edifices of a Kiwi bird and a very large ram! That should silence the sheep jokes that we in New Zealand get bombarded with.

It was great to see the Arundel 8 valve #231 with Steve Hari doing a great job on the track. Lifting the front wheel at speed out of the corner was a sight to behold, as was his leading the field in the opening laps of a race against much more modern opposition. This bike has a recorded 157.56 mph and also has the current lap record at Phillip Island for pre-war class.  The bike is a great credit to Peter Arundel and his team.

Warrick Ellis and Steve Cavanagh both from Australia put on a good showing, with Steve taking out the Hand Change trophy. They were both campaigning 741-based racers.  For me it was great to see Paul Hanes going very strongly on my old 741 based racer.

Perry Moore had breathed on it after it blew a cylinder off recently. But for a blown head gasket in the last race, the trophy may have been on his mantelpiece! It is fitting that it went to one of the visitors, a fit reward for all the effort taken to get here.

New Zealanders  Ben Devereux, Rex Hosking, Justin Monk, Perry Moore and Jamie Walter made up the fields and all had a great time. Jamie rode the 1917 board track racer and this is a sight to be seen on the track. It is surprisingly quick, having no gears and very little braking! Maybe it was the float I borrowed from the second Munro replica to get them going again!

The neat thing in the Indian racing is the free sharing of all the little secrets of making this old iron run strongly. Covers coming off to show the tricks, all hands on any bikes needing work and the sharing of parts and know how. No politics, no egos and all good fun!

For many, the face off between the Arundel 8 valve and the replica Munro special was the high point of the weekend. Both bikes got huge attention from everyone at the meeting. Cameras clicking and very close scrutiny was evident right through the weekend. Both bikes have the patina of working bikes and not that of trailer queens. This is very refreshing to see. We are all guilty of over restoring and continuing to tart up our machinery. The Munro replica looks remarkably like the images we treasure of the old video footage.

Upon arriving home last night, I hauled out the tape and took another look. Perfect, dirt and all!

The Munro special was built to go the distance of extensive use for the making of the Burt Munro movie. It was built with a compression ratio of only nine to one, considerably less than the original motors when Burt was running them. Perry Moore, who was responsible for getting the bike sorted out and running strongly, did 24 hours of hard out riding in the beach filming sequences alone. It is fine testament to the building skills of Britten Motorcycles and Perry, that the bike was oil tight and running strongly after the punishing beach use.
It was fitting that Wayne from Britten and Perry both got a shot at running the bike at Ruapuna. This was no mean feat. The straight is uncomfortably short for the Munro special, which has virtually no brakes and a very solid end fence at the end of the straight. Perry was observed using his boot to stop!

Without taking anything away from Steve Hari’s win with the Arundel 8 valve, it would have been interesting to have seen the bikes running over 5 miles.

At the end of the day it did not matter who won, Steve graciously invited all concerned to consume the prize. Lone Star Café sponsored the Worlds Fastest Indian race and all in their café had a good time on Saturday night.

The Organizers of the Ruapuna meeting have it just perfect. Efficiently run with maximum races and yet a totally laid back feel to the whole experience.

The Australian visitors were amazed at things like $10 practice day, officials doing their utmost to accommodate, no cooking up bikes while waiting  on the dummy grid and not to mention a good meal and big cash prizes at the prize giving!

I heard comments of “ How can we get it to work like that at Home” I am sure they will be back. It sure got my juices going again. I have been mulling over a few ideas for another racer. I just have to procure one crucial component; the rest should be reasonably easy. 

I hope you all enjoy a few of my photos.[Do not be confused, there were two Munro replicas there!] Cheers, Malcolm.