Old photos..

[serazin]

I found these old phot0s a few days ago.
I took them in the mid-70's.
I wonder if any of you can name the folks in the pictures, or put a location on where I took them.

http://home.pacbell.net/serazin/who1s.jpg

http://home.pacbell.net/serazin/who2s.jpg

[Kbrick]

I found these old phot0s a few days ago.
I took them in the mid-70's.
I wonder if any of you can name the folks in the pictures, or put a location on where I took them.

http://home.pacbell.net/serazin/who1s.jpg

http://home.pacbell.net/serazin/who2s.jpg
I would guess late 1977/ early 1978 at a race track!
Seriously was it Laguna Seca 78, and one of those guys is Miles Baldwin.

[20774]

I posed the question about the photos to Tom Cutter, who hangs out on the Airheads list. He was involved with the B&S racing team for a while. Here's his rememberances about the photos:

"The bike is the Butler & Smith 750CC GP bike campaigned in the AMA Formula One series. I think the photo is from 1973 or 74. Reg Pridmore rode it, I think.

I recognize Helmut Kern (B&S VP) in one shot, in the cap, talking to (I
think) Cook Neilson (Racer and Editor, CYCLE Magazine) The fellow in the
foreground right side looks like a young John Heibler. the fellow on the left I do not know. These shots are from the California contingent of Butler & Smith, based out of Compton, California. The bike now resides in the Barber Motorsports Museum outside of Birmingham, AL.

The bike is a Rob North-framed, short-barreled 750cc GP version. The dual
shock setup with Koni shocks were Reg's favorite, he never really liked the
monoshock setup.The forks are Ceriani Road Race models from Italy. Wheels are Morris Magnesium.

I can't see to be sure whether it is fitted in this photo, but some of those
bikes had Hillborn mechanical fuel injection fitted. The cylinder heads are
BMW-made special sidecar racing heads. Udo managed to get a hold of several sets of them, and used them for years. They had the intake ports splayed out instead of in toward the crankcase.

The comments above are from my memory, which is gettign worse by the day. I may have mis-identified some of the photos. I sent the photos to Udo Gietl, who built that bike. I'll see if he can shed more memories on those shots.

I don't know how many AirList members were at the BMWMOA Rally in Lima, Ohio this past summer, but Udo had a short seminar on BMW racing history. He trotted out his personal scrapbook of photos from the Butler & Smith racing days. The people were pretty interested to see those pictures. Some real living history. I don't think that he had these two shots, so I am sure that he will be glad to see them.

Tom Cutter
Yardley, PA"

[bmwmick]

Kurt,
Nice work. :) I'm trying to get John Heibler a copy of those pics to see if he remembers being there.

[serazin]

Here is another one.

Top of the hill, old turn 6, Laguna.

http://home.pacbell.net/serazin/who.jpg

[20774]

More input, this time from Udo Gietl. Udo wrote to Tom Cutter:

"Hi Tom,

Both of these bikes are alive and well. They actually are in running condition. They were built for the 74 and 75 seasons and ridden by Pridmore #63 and Liebmann #95 in 74. The East Coast bike was converted to monoshock for 75 and ridden by Fisher #21.

The #63 is with a LA BMW dealer and #21 is at the Barber Museum. These were the most developed B&S bikes with roller cams, Ti - Valves, Mikuni Carbs and all metal Borg & Beck Cooper Clutches. The Hilborn Injector motors were for the 76 season, however, the switch was to Superbikes. The for 76 motors not only had fuel injection, also ram air and made competitive power at 10,500 RPM. We will never know how they would have faired in 76. Two good pilots, best handling BMW ever and power to do well on the technical courses.

The folks on the pix you sent, are : left, Miles Rostdeutcher, right John
Heibler, aft, Helmut Kern. The rest are unknown and no "Cooky" Nielson.
Take GINGO BIOLBA to prolong your memory.

Regards, Udo"

Kurt in S.A.

[BubbaZanetti]

these bikes are beautiful!

[20774]

Udo sent Tom Cutter a batch of his photos that he has scanned into his computer.

Tom have captioned and posted these to his photo website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubberchickenracinggarage/

Any captioning errors are Tom's alone.

Kurt in S.A.....wow this could take some time to get through!!

[kbasa]

Udo sent Tom Cutter a batch of his photos that he has scanned into his computer.

Tom have captioned and posted these to his photo website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubberchickenracinggarage/

Any captioning errors are Tom's alone.

Kurt in S.A.....wow this could take some time to get through!!

Tina and I saw that airhead race in Laconia. That was back when an R100 could still be fairly competitive. Man. That brings back some memories of what that old track was like.