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The Silverstone Historic Festival 2001
RE: The Mike Hailwood Memorial Cup
The Silverstone (England) Historic Festival was held on August 24-27th
over the Bankers Holiday weekend. This event is primarily for classic
automobiles (racing and concours) with 2001 being the first year to include
classic racing motorcycles. It
is billed as the largest Classic event in the world, having attendance
over the weekend at about 120,000. Presenters of awards and trophies included
Scotsman Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansel and Pauline Hailwood, all at the
Scarf & Goggles Club.
The AHRMA members and their teams attending were: Gary Nixon, Jon Schultz,
Bob Goodpaster, Mitch Boehm, Pat Mooney, Adam Popp and John Staska. At
stake was the first annual "Mike The Bike" Hailwood trophy,
presented by Pauline Hailwood, Mike's widow. Leading the motorcycle's
warm-up laps daily was David Hailwood, Mike's son. This event was professionally
handled from start to finish by Alan Robinson, a former English roadracer
and current organizer of the Classic TT at the Isle of Mann.
The AHRMA membership had varying degrees of success, with M3 Racing's
Adam Popp finishing highest at sixth in the feature event on Monday. John
Staska had the pole after turning in the fastest time in Fridays practice,
while Pat Mooney won the Saturday "practice" race. Pat Mooney
and Gary Nixon were both aboard Triumph triples, Jon was on his AHRMA
F-750 Championship winning Harley Davidson, Bob was on his Bears Championship
Norton twin, Mitch on a Honda CB750 based racer, with Adam and John both
aboard M3 Racing USA's Honda CR750's.
 During the event, the Schultz, Goodpaster. and M3 teams all stayed approximately
12 miles from the track at the same hotel, in Weeden. All three teams
formed friendships while discussing the days racing over a few Guiness'
and assorted warm bitter biers. Funny, how fast we all got when we were
away from the track? "Legends in our own mind"...comes to me
now. All in all, we found the British to be friendly and very accommodating.
On Tuesday after the races, the M3 team along with the Swedish Ducati
team of Hasse Gustaffson, Robert Laver and Raymond visited the Honda powered
F1 team of British American Racing (BAR) for a press function and facility
tour. The BAR team facility is located outside of Brackley within 25 minutes
of the Silverstone track. The six hour tour gave the teams insight into
the most highly technical brand of racing in the world. The factory builds
everything, literally, with the exception of tires, engines and a few
other items. Their in-house research and development advances at such
a pace that we saw parts being made for fittment on the current race cars
that were actually obsolete...as new and improved parts were being drawn
up and tested in the technical dept. located upstairs in the corporate
tower! Their current employment is approximately 370, with an additional
15% soon to come on board due to the expansion to two complete test teams.
There are in excess of one hundred sensors on each car relaying information/data
constantly to the pits, Japan and UK. The 3 liter V-10 engines exceed
815 BHP at 17,000 rpm's. Carbon fibre is the bulk of the car's construction,
also formulated in-house. It would be difficult to describe the effect
this tour had on the M3 racing team.....kids in a candy store does not
even touch it!
submitted by Jim Hagen
M3 Racing USA
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