| Just to add my tuppence worth(for what it's worth).
1/ There were no 'works' bikes there. Geof paid for his bike-ok prepped for him by Baines Racing-I had a long chat with Geof, he has 2 other Ducati's a road and a track SPS, oh and a road Triumph as well-he is also a club member(as are all the entrants), but he doesn't post on this board.
The 2 Ducati London South bikes were ex loan monsters which the riders paid for and the workshop guys prepped in their own time. Dave Rileys bike was built at Ducati Coventry since as you know he works there, but it's his bike. Chris Butchers bike was paid for by his dad Graham, and prepared by both of them.
2/ When the rules were formulated(not by me) there were no 'Big Bore' kits available for the 620 bikes, there still aren't. However if you are prepared to invest time and money poring over piston catalogues it IS possible to find a piston which will give you a big bore-so basically you make your own, which is what Baines Racing did-there is nothing in the rules to say you cannot do this.
The 'Gentlemans agreement' stems from the fact that John Hackett being an engineer was also going down this route, and when he told us I asked him to put it on hold, which he agreed to do.
The reason that John was doing this is because he felt that a properly developed big bored 583 when equipped with flat slide carbs(which no-one has done yet) would walk away from a 620, and he wanted his bikes to be competitive.
Like I said, this is my perspective, the Race Team will discuss all of this and post a considered answer to this and the meaning of life and the universe............
John |