Old Karting vids

SouperComputer

I put up some karting Vids from Ireland in the 90's.....

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=polychomaticzena


Loads of drivers: Eoin Murray, Michael Deveany, Emmett O' Brien, Gary Coby, Kieran O' Carroll, Neil Shanhan, Johnny Fildes, Matthew Griffin, Niki Meredith, Robert Brophy...........some of them boardsies


Some top picks:

1999 All-Ireland Championships, 100 National

A full 7mins of crashes from the 1997 Open Karting Championships

1996 Leinster Trophy, JICA Class, Race 1

1996 Leinster Trophy, JICA Class, Race 2

Robbo

Top stuff indeed, Jim. Just watched the 96 Leinster Trophy race there. It appears I went backwards at a fierce rate. I *think* I was out in Kieran's Fullerton (the Puma possibly) and the brakes were soft. At least that's my excuse.

The 97 Leinster Trophy was the one where (as a de-restricted rookie I might add), I stuck it on 4th in qualifying. Naturally it was wet, what with me being half rainwater. In the race I was melodeoned at the first corner.

I think I might have a VHS of the 95 O Plate. I'll try to have a look for that at some stage.

SouperComputer

IIRC a lot of naughty drivers pulled off their lead for the 96 Leinster Trophy due to the scales saga. I wasnt around then, so its all 2nd hand information, but looking at the footage, its pretty believable. That might explain your (and Kieran's) demise If you look closely you'll see Kieran O' Carroll (No. 77 for everyone else's reference) bump draft Niall Doherty (No. IRL) over the line in the first race to take third.

Dig up any videos you have, I have a load of stuff that I am going to get someone to pickup in Ireland, digitise to a HD and ship it to me in the US. It would be cool to have as much around as possible. It was crazy watching the tapes to think that John Grandon, Mark Smith, John Brennan and Neil Shanahan have all passed away is really strange.

Ive finished editing the 1993 Ballina street races, I just need to upload them. Might have golspie 98 too somwhere on the HD.

Robbo

Upon further thinking, it was 97 when I was driving Kieran's chassis. In 96 I had the brakes go on my own Fullerton.

I remember the scales saga. You can see it in that video alright from those that would have been carrying a fair skelp of lead. I would have been carrying 6-8 kgs back then but I left it on like a mug. There's two in that race who I reckon would have shed over 10kgs if not closer to 15.

SouperComputer

There's two in that race who I reckon would have shed over 10kgs if not closer to 15.

Yea a couple of drivers had interesting improvement in form, but I wouldn't dare name names

Robbo

Just had a gander at the 97 O plate montage du carnage. Somewhere in the midst of it is a snip of me leading a heat and what's more, Trevor says so too. Lunacy abounds. Think I finished 4th at the end of that weekend.

Kersh

Cool, thanks for puttin these up. Savage vids.

Beekay

haha,its weird seein mondello in such a state,i was only a nipper back then!!:D

SouperComputer

Beekay wrote:

haha,its weird seein mondello in such a state,i was only a nipper back then!!:D

Believe it or not, the short track that the Juniors used was the very first Mondello Track when it was founded in the 60's

aidan_dunne

Ah yes, I well remember watching those races back in the day when RTE used to dedicate a lot of coverage (some of it live) to the Leinster Trophy weekend. Remember watching their live coverage of the Leinster Trophy race when the Formula Opel Euroseries used to come over and a few of our own top F-Opel drivers would go up against the Euroseries regulars as wildcards. Think it was actually that year (1996. Or was it the following year? Sometime around then anyway! ) that a certain Takuma Sato, who was racing in the Euroseries then, showed what he was capable of in the Leinster Trophy race. Everybody seemed to have him marked out as a future F1 star after that performance. How wrong we were!

Pity the Leinster Trophy doesn't seem to have the same kudos these days as it used to back then and there's no live RTE coverage of it anymore.

Beekay wrote:

haha,its weird seein mondello in such a state

Yeah, I know! Exposed grass banks at the side of the track, just a few stacks of tyres here and there, little or no run off, only the odd gravel trap. :eek: I think it's testament to the work and investment Martin Birrane and his team at Mondello have put into the circuit over the last 10 years or so that we now have a circuit in this country that's capable of hosting things such as the BTCC, British Superbikes, British F3, etc. I remember visiting Mondello in the early 90's when there was tufts of grass growing up through the track in places, for God's sake! It really was run-down and decrepite (sp?) at that time and was barely capable of hosting our own domestic racing classes, let alone any international series. When I re-visited the circuit in 2001 after having not been there in a few years, I couldn't believe the changes I saw. That was just after they'd built the new race control tower and pit garage/hospitality suite complex. It actually looked like a proper racing circuit now, with new armco barriers and tyre walls around the circuit and improved run-off areas and gravel traps and everything. I couldn't believe the change from the old, run-down Mondello I'd remembered a few years previously. And they've managed to continue the improvements year on year since then, it seems.

I know a lot of people in this country tend to criticise Mondello still to this day (especially certain people within the racing community itself) but I think that's quite unfair because, as I said, if you look at the time and effort and considerable money Martin Birrane and his team at Mondello have put into the circuit over the past 10 years, I think we should all be proud of the racing facility we have now in County Kildare. There's a lot of people out there with very short memories, it seems, and who like to criticise who could do with seeing those videos Souper put up and see just how far Mondello has come over the past few years.

Kersh

Ye, Sato was there in 99. Tomas Schechter was there too that weekend iirc.

Robbo

aidan_dunne wrote:

Pity the Leinster Trophy doesn't seem to have the same kudos these days as it used to back then and there's no live RTE coverage of it anymore.

It's the way domestic motorsport has disappeared in general from the public eye, in general. I remember when there were reports on the 9 O'Clock news of the day's action on Tarmac Championship rallies. Now you're lucky if you even get 50 words in the arse end of a Monday sports supplement. Say in Killarney or Donegal, you're talking about at least 10,000 spectators over the weekend (probably a few times that) yet you'll hear nothing about it outside the specialised press.

You'd think that the only time sports editors in this country leave the golf club bar is to cover the all important Achill Island minor womens blindfold camogie jamboree...

aidan_dunne

Kersh wrote:

Ye, Sato was there in 99. Tomas Schechter was there too that weekend iirc.

God, was it only '99? For some reason I thought it was a few years earlier than that, as I said above. I guess the years tend to play tricks on the old memory!

And yeah, you're right, I do recall Schechter racing at Mondello during that same Leinster Trophy meeting as well.

I noticed in the one video above there that I've had a chance to look at so far that it looked like an Audi was being used as the pace car. Does anybody remember the fairly battered old Sierra Cosworth (with Dunlop sponsorship plastered all over it, I think) that served as the pace car at Mondello for many years?

aidan_dunne

Robbo wrote:

It's the way domestic motorsport has disappeared in general from the public eye, in general. I remember when there were reports on the 9 O'Clock news of the day's action on Tarmac Championship rallies. Now you're lucky if you even get 50 words in the arse end of a Monday sports supplement. Say in Killarney or Donegal, you're talking about at least 10,000 spectators over the weekend (probably a few times that) yet you'll hear nothing about it outside the specialised press.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. In addition to the reports that would be on the news you mentioned, I remember back in the early to mid-90's when there used to be nightly "Rally Reports" on the Circuit of Ireland Rally (back when it was the "proper" circuit that actually went right around the country!). The reports used to be only maybe 15 minutes or so but at least it was something. Now, as you say, you're lucky if rallies or domestic motorsport gets a mention in a tiny little sidebar column in the paper, let alone on television outside of the likes of motorsport programmes like 'RPM' or whatever.

So much for progress, eh? :rolleyes:

Motormouth

aidan_dunne wrote:

Does anybody remember the fairly battered old Sierra Cosworth (with Dunlop sponsorship plastered all over it, I think) that served as the pace car at Mondello for many years?

Yeah, that´s John Keaney´s old racecar. Full Group N spec, 300 odd bhp. John still has it I think. Don´t remember it being battered though.....

nikimere

my very 1st kart race win (final)! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgtUnwqeYkQ

SouperComputer

nikimere wrote:

my very 1st kart race win (final)! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgtUnwqeYkQ

I thought you had won a few before 98! Anyway, hope you like the (somewhat random) footage!

I have more stuff, but its all in ireland, undigitised

Im thinking of having someone pickup the videos, process them for me and ship the HD with all the video on it to me in the US. Do you have any footage that I could post up Niki?

If you're interested I can send you the non-youtube version of that race, much less compression

nikimere

i do have some footage, i'd have to find a way for getting in onto the computer (i.e. the proper hardware)
I have that race on recorded already, my mam was videoing that day too
i think the girl screaming in the background of that movie is my sister! lol!!

davyboy888

Just fell across this stuff as I was loading a vid onto youtube.com and decided to register here on boards.ie today.

I'm from the decade earlier that taste forgot, the 1980s, but it was still great to see some of the people I remember back then.

Gordon Duncan around Limerick... that guy whipped us southerners for most of the late 1980s. I remember I overtook him down the back straight in Mondello and headed him for two laps of the place in the 1987 or 1988 race of champions [can't remember]. He came over to me in the paddock and took a look at my Fullerton TF87 with its PCR Testa Rossa and said to me, that motor's gotta be bent. I told him it wasn't... but I didn't tell him I was 2 stone under the weight limit

Denny O'Driscoll and Tucker O'Connell in Limerick... Denny was a karting king in the 1960s but was still giving advice in the 1980s [and it looks like the 1990s]. He was old back then... hope he's still with us though. And Tucker O'Connell... what was a 40 year old thinking of going out in 100cc karts with us 16 year old nutcases. Still he always said it was safer than hurling.

Was that Peter Dunne doing some interviews ? I remember him driving some new Deavinson Sprint kit back in the mid-late 1980s. I think his dad did some officialdom for the IKC because I have a VHS from the 1989 Leinster Trophy when we were asked by his dad to 'fake' a race for all but the last two laps to get PR for the club. His dad's holding the chequer, so he must have been the CoC or something. His dad was a good guy.

Those were the days man... let me go and reach for some A-ha and Duran Duran right now.

On a serious note... it would be great to see more vids on youtube.com, particularly 1980s ones if you guys have them.

SouperComputer

did you post some 80's vids Davy. Id love to see em if you did! I have nothing from the 80's. I encounterd karting at the Phoenix park races in 94 and started attending races with my equipment (as opposed to raced!) in 1997.

..................and welcome to boards

davyboy888

Cheers for the welcome.

I didn't post any kart racing vids yet. I've got the RTE coverage of the 1989 Leinster Trophy 100cc National race on VHS, pretty ropey I'm afraid even though it came off an RTE master back then. I need to figure out how I can get it from VHS to file I can load. A challenge for the dark winter nights I guess.

Its funny I've started getting back into karting again after a layoff of 14 years... my last race was in Kimbolton in 1992... and I've found the karts are nowhere near as fast or as raw as they were back in the 1980s and early 1990s. I'm suffering from the experience though, my 37 year old frame has taken a right old battering over the summer and I'm still feeling the pain today. Now I know why Michael Schumacher retired this year

SouperComputer

karting has become a bit more civilised alright. I remember my first kart was a weapon! No finger guard, no airbox OR bodywork and those lovely little narrow rear bumpers. I also didnt put a throttle return spring on the carb so my first trip to turn 1 at Mondello was a fun one!

This phasing out of FA and two strokes bugs me. Its not the same without worrying if you have gone too lean and expecting to get a conrod in the elbow, not to mention solid locked rear wheels!

What class did you race in the UK this year?

davyboy888

Well, my first trip round the 1.24 mile Mondello track in March 1983 involved a trip into the scenery at Dunlop [not sure what the final hairpin's called today] when I didn't know where the track went !

They've been working on introducing 4-stroke classes here in the UK now for a few years. There's the Biland class and Formula TKM /4. Both of which I totally detest. Its a combination of noise and environmental problems with the two strokes. 2006 was the last year a 100cc world championship was held as well, really sad.

I myself am fully kitted out for Formula TKM /2 which uses the TKM BT82 piston port engine. Its an air cooled two stroke which revs to about 14,500 [though I've got mine running happily at 16,700 all the time] and is very cheap to run. Its a pity they were never introduced to the Irish Republic, though they did appear in the North. The main class of interest here in the UK now is Easykart... which is a stock Birel chassis and 125cc Parilla aircooled engine. The engine looks great, but the Birel chassis's cheap in order to fall within the GBP1,800 all in price limit... still I'm seriously thinking of getting involved in it at some stage.

Easykart's suffered a sad weekend Sunday a week ago though when driver Adam Goatley was killed in a race at Buckmore Park... so I'm not sure how that will affect things going forward. Its been a sad few weeks for karting here as a Superkart driver, Richard Weavers was killed at the Walter Hayes Trophy in Silverstone a couple of weeks before that.

SouperComputer

I'm not sure why TKM didnt take off in Ireland TBH. Most people just wanted to do JICA I guess. I raced 100's (Clubman and later FA) and the death of the 2/ appalls me

Have you seen the 4/ wankel engine, its crazy: http://karting1.co.uk/wankel-kart-test.htm 48BHP and only 17KG!

Stick two of those on a prokart chassis with front brakes and you have an insane machine!

Any idea what happend at Buckmore? It seems to be hush hush on karting.co.uk

davyboy888

I think the death of /2 is appalling most hardcore kart racers... I think I'll seriously consider packing it up once and for all if that happens. Driving a tractor with a 1cm ground clearance just doesn't turn me on at all. Interestingly there's a growing 'non-MSA' following developing over here where a group of people get together, hire a track [usually a non-MSA track] and race what they like. The rules are very loose, but its more or less an anything goes situation. I'm sure that's where the wankel rotary engine's likely to appear. That thing is scarily quick isn't it.

I don't know what went on at Buckmore Park, but there was an article here on the Kent Messenger site. I believe there's an investigation of some sort and I guess in time the facts will emerge. Its a very sad situation though.

http://www.thekmgroup.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=29435

SouperComputer

A death is always a bad thing, but it is a possibility that we often forget about. There was a driver killed in Mondello a couple of years ago in Max during testing. Apparently he adjusted his tracking but either didnt lock the tracking nuts for didnt tighten them enough. Went off at the entry to the esses. I say apparantly as I want there.

Have you come across the classic karters, id love to have a go at one of the meetings, must see if there is anything like it stateside:

http://groups.msn.com/VINTAGEKARTSUK

davyboy888

Ah its dreadful, nothing's worse. I heard about the guy killed in the Max alright. I didn't learn any of the details, but its dreadfully sad. Let's pray there isn't any more.

I've seen that classic karts site alright... I'm actually a member of another one, retrokarting run by Jeff Gray. He's got a beautiful replica of Mike Wilson's Birel T12/Komet, which Mike actually drove last year. Amazing. They race reasonably regularly. I have 4 old 100cc motors, including a 1982 PCR, a 1989 Rotax [very badly siezed] and 1990s PCR and 1990s Solo. I'm looking to get a nice early 1980s kart to go racing with those retro boys as it seems a lot of fun.

http://groups.msn.com/RetroKarting

In terms of stuff stateside... try these guys... a bit older than the 1980s/1990s I know, but worth a look.

http://www.rearenginekarts.com/

DYam50

Sadly Denny is gone a few years back, but tucker still involved with Southern Karting Club, id say he`d still race given half a chance.
Im only 22 and i remember most of those old meetings, wen i was only watchin my ould lad racin, He`s back from the dark ages of karting, he used race on real road circuits in karts in in Carrick and Tipperary i think, and he raced aroud the grounds of St. Sennans Mental hospital in Enniscorthy, wexford, scary thing is he`s still at it and still quick, i cant beat the bugger usually.
P.S. KILCORNAN, what a legend of a Circuit, remember nightclub there during IRL weekends was an event to behold, And absolutly packed bar for prizegiving afterwards, watever happened to karting spirit eh.

davyboy888

I'm sorry to hear Denny's gone. He was a legend down there.

Tucker probably is a legend at this stage. He was [is] one of was a ton of them from Clonmel, John Cassin, Cyril and Eamon Bates, Ian Walsh, Tom Walsh [no relation]. The Bates brothers were more late 1970s, early 1980s. They weren't doing a lot of driving during my heyday [mid-late 1980s].

I remember the racing in St. Senans hospital very well. It was around the time of the strawberry fair or something. I finished 4th there one year with a jammed open throttle [very scary]. My brakes were literally on fire. We also raced around the town centre of Clonmel [1985 I think]. That was awesome. The sound of the engines echoing off the buildings is something I'll never forget. The main problem I had was broken engine mounts. The clamps on a kart engine are very low and were being caught on the shores, bumps etc... I had a brand new rig for that event and proceeded to all but write it off at the first turn of the final by doing a half roll into the crowd. I bet the insurance people would have had their hearts in their mouths if they saw that one.

The All Ireland's were the best events I've ever raced at and that pub by the track was something else. Absolutely fantastic days for sure.

So who's your dad then ? He must have been around when I was racing if you were born in 1984... I'm now trying to rack my brains on who had young kids back then :-)

SouperComputer

gentle nudge for the thread. Ive uploaded about 15 or so vids. I still have to complete the names and details but anyway they are up there.

twaithes

Guys, reaching out on a limb here but do any of you remember a coulple of brothers from Kilkenny (Dick and Danny Lannon) that used to race with Tucker and Johnny Cassin, Austin Bishop and the rest of the legends of teh 60's and 70's?