A BIG thank you to Kevin Schwantz and his father Jim from all of us at McIntosh Racing, for being the perfect guests during their visit to New Zealand.

Kevin came to New Zealand not really knowing what he was in for, but he immediately impressed everybody with his enthusiasm for racing motorcycles, and his good natured humor.

His attitude to racing a Featherbed Manx Norton which was originally designed nearly 60 years ago was incredible, and with only one days practice the pressure was on to adapt.

To complicate matters, the major competition came from the multi Australian and NZ Classic Champion, Dave Cole, who had raced against fellow GP Champion Wayne Gardner at Phillip Island in 2008 and won. This seemed to spur Kevin on even more!

Kevin had to adapt to racing with drum brakes and on tires he had never used before although he soon gained enough confidence to win all his races and get the lap record.

With the temperature being hotter than normal for February in NZ (over 30 degrees Celsius) the fork damping was too light and some overnight modification to the internals bought a useful improvement and an immediate drop in lap times. Kevin’s friend Darryl Beatie was on hand to offer advice along with Jim Schwantz and after watching at different point on the circuit came up with suggestions that all helped get the set-up better and better for Pukekohe fast and bumpy corners.

I wrongly expected Kevin to find it hard to adapt to a bike so different to anything he had raced before, but I guess it helped that Manx Norton’s were ridden at the top level by previous World Champions like Geoff Duke, Ray Amm, John Surtees, Jim Redman and Mike Hailwood, the top riders of the time who were all involved in its evolution.

When we first talked I said the purpose of the visit to NZ was to have fun and he could go as fast (or slow) as he liked. Kevin explained to one of the interviewers that for him the fun is proportional to the finishing result! Kevin finished the weekend with the promise of “there’s more to come yet!” Over a couple of beers asked him what was the worst thing about the bike and he showed me a blister on his gear changing toe. I told him he has got to “harden-up, mate”

The New Zealand crowds were totally blown away by just how fast Kevin actually was and how good he looked on a classic race bike. Unusually for a Pukekohe Classic Festival when Kevin was racing everybody in the large crowd stopped what they were doing to watch and Kevin got a huge cheer with each win.

It was also a pleasure to meet Jim Schwantz who rode my 1951 Featherbed Manx “Long-stroke” in the “Regularity Parades” and he said he enjoyed every minute of it. Jim has owned a Manx since Kevin bought it for him after winning the World Championship, but he has yet to ride it himself.

We would all love to have Kevin come back again next year for more racing and also to bring his World Championship winning Suzuki 500 GP bike to demonstrate.

Ken McIntosh

More of Ken's pictures can be found here