ICON make some of the most exciting restomods in the world – hands down. We spoke to Jonathan Ward the man behind it all to find out more.
samedi 25 avril 2015
WRC, Argentine, après ES8 : Ostberg attaque, Meeke contrôle / Ostberg chasing Meeke
Le classement n’a pas évolué en tête du Rallye d’Argentine ce matin. Kris Meeke (Citroën/Michelin) est toujours leader, mais il a perdu la moitié de son avance sur son équipier Ostberg (2e). De son côté, Dani Sordo (4e, Hyundai) a sérieusement réduit l’écart avec Latvala (3e, VW).
C’est encore une belle journée d’automne sur la province de Cordoba aujourd’hui, des conditions parfaites pour la deuxième étape du Rallye d’Argentine et pour Kris Meeke en quête d’une première victoire en WRC. Enfin, peut-être pas si parfaites que ça car il n’y a pas de vent et les pilotes se plaignent de la poussière.
Sébastien Ogier, reparti 2e sur la route ce matin derrière Bertelli, a menacé de rendre son carnet de bord si l’on n’augmentait pas l’écart entre les voitures. Son souhait fut exaucé. Après l’ES7, les organisateurs ont décidé de lâcher les voitures toutes les trois minutes au lieu de deux.
Le réveil ftu brutal pour Kris Meeke. Au départ de l’ES7, il a perdu environ 15 secondes dans un tête-à-queue, pendant que les trois Volkswagen Polo R WRC signaient le triplé avec Ogier, Mikkelsen et Latvala, ce dernier revenant à 12s8 de Mads Ostberg.
L’ES8, raccourcie à 42,50 km en raison d’un bourbier sur les 14 premiers kilomètres, était très compliquée et cassante : « C’est très étroit, trop facile de toucher un rocher. Il faut des notes parfaites », analysait Ogier après avoir signé un premier temps de référence. « Tout peut arriver ici. »
Il n’y a finalement pas eu trop de péripéties. Mikkelsen a remporté la spéciale, mais Meeke a cédé 21 secondes sur Ostberg. Le Norvégien, fiévreux et pratiquement aphone, est revenu à 32s6 de son équipier. Mais le pilote britannique ne semblait pas inquiet à l’arrivée. « Il était important de terminer cette spéciale. »
Autre pilote « prudent » dans cette ES8, Jari-Matti Latvala s’est fait une belle chaleur en début de spéciale et a perdu le rythme : « J’ai de la chance, il n’y avait pas de rochers à cet endroit », a commenté le Finlandais encore tout tremblotant à l’arrivée.
Du coup, Dani Sordo s’est rapproché à 14s1 du Finlandais et de la 3e place. L’Espagnol aurait même pu pointer sur le podium provisoire à l’issue de l’ES8 sans un tout-droit dans une épingle gauche serrée près de la fin. Il estimait avoir perdu 10 à 15 secondes et s’en voulait encore…
De son côté, Thierry Neuville est en bagarre avec Prokop pour la 6e place (+11s8). Sordo, Ostberg et Neuville ont terminé l’ES8 dans la même seconde après 42,50 km parcourus sans aucun temps intermédiaire.
En WRC-2, Al-Kuwari (Ford) est leader avec plus de 3 minutes d’avance Dominguez, et près de 10 sur Ketomaa ! Yuri Protasov n’a pas été récompensé de sa persévérance hier en allant rechercher une roue perdue en spéciale. Il a écopé de 15 minutes de pénalité…
Although the order hasn’t changed, this morning’s action has produced a subtle shift in the situation at the sharp end in Argentina. Kris Meeke still leads for Citroën/Michelin but has lost almost half his overnight lead to team-mate Ostberg (2nd). Meanwhile, Dani Sordo (Hyundai) has closed the gap to Jari-Matti Latvala (VW) in the battle for third.
It’s another beautiful day in the mountains north of Cordoba, the perfect setting for Saturday’s four stages as Meeke attempts to defend his lead and perhaps claim his first WRC victory.
The conditions aren’t idyllic, though, since there’s hardly any wind and all the drivers complained of dust after this morning’s opener (SS7, Capilla del Monte/San Marcos).
Sébastien Ogier – who is running second on the road today, behind Ford privateer Lorenzo Bertelli – even threatened to stop if the starting gap between the cars wasn’t extended. His pleas were clearly heard, since the organisers decided to increase it from two to three minutes for the rest of the day.
SS7 stage saw Meeke surrender a chunk of his cushion when a spin cost an estimated 15 seconds. Volkswagen’s trio – now all running again – claimed the top three times with Ogier, Mikkelsen and Latvala, and the latter closed to 12.8s of second-placed Ostberg.
Next on the menu was SS8 where the spectators, taking advantage of the weekend, were out in numbers. At the finish, although the stage was dry, there were remnant signs of the recent rain that compelled the organisers to chop 14km off ‘San Marcos-Characato’ to avoid the mud-locked start.
“It was very narrow. So easy to hit a rock. Very demanding. You needed perfect pace notes,” analysed Ogier after posting the benchmark time. “Something could happen, for sure…”
In the end, there was no real drama. Mikkelsen won the stage for VW and there were no more mentions of dust, although Meeke still ceded another 21s to Ostberg. The Norwegian, who is feeling poorly, has consequently managed to reduce his deficit from 1m8.4s overnight to just 32.6s!
The Ulsterman didn’t sound unduly concerned at the Stop Control, though: “It was important to get through this morning’s stages,” he commented. “I had new pace notes, so I was very cautious…”
Another cautious driver on SS8 was Latvala who admitted to a big ‘moment’ and subsequently losing his rhythm. “I was lucky there were no rocks to it,” reported the shaken Finn.
His dip in form allowed the charging Dani Sordo to get close and the Spaniard nearly earned a footing on the provisional podium for Hyundai. The opportunity was lost when he overshot a slow left hairpin near the end, wasting an estimated 10 to 15 seconds. The gap between them now stands at 14.1s and Sordo was understandably frustrated at the finish…
Another battle to watch concerns Thierry Neuville’s challenge for sixth. The Hyundai man is now only 11.8s short of Martin Prokop (Ford), but almost three minutes down on Elfyn Evans (5th, Ford).
’74 Rickman Metisse by 66 Motorcycles
Written by Martin Hodgson.
The name Rickman carries a pedigree like few others in the motorcycle industry, when it is followed by Metisse you are dealing with royalty, the king of custom frames built by two genius brothers with racing in their DNA. But what you have before you is no off road scrambler, but a 100% street legal urban tracker that can be easily returned to its roots in no time at all. An original classic or a ball tearing street weapon, it’s a 1974 Rickman Metisse with Triumph power built by Australia’s 66 Motorcycles and is simply known as “The Brit”.
For those not familiar with the Rickman brand it was a creation of two very successful Scrambles racers of the Golden Era, Don & Derek Rickman. Despite great on track success throughout the late 50’s and into the 60’s they became less and less impressed by the machines the big factories were turning out. So rather than complain they put their engineering minds together and started building frames and components that could accept an array of factory engines. Instantly they were on track winners and every man and his dog wanted one, so they entered into limited production runs and the rest they say is history. The bike before you sports one of Rickman’s Metisse frames built in 1974 to accept a 750cc Triumph engine, a popular combination at the time. Normally a Rickman Matisse would stay untouched, but the owner wanted his Metisse street legal, designed for on road rather than dirt bike riding and it had to be able to be converted back to original specs.
That’s no easy task but 66 Motorcycles are masters of turning wrecks to riches, now starting with quality they built a masterpiece. The bike was stripped down to its bare frame and some serious elbow grease was put in to restore the shine of the nickel plated frame. The recently rebuilt engine to competition specs was in fantastic condition internally but needed work to bring its aesthetics up to Metisse style standards. To give the front end more road appropriate performance a set of Yamaha XS650 forks have been rebuilt to the desired specs. A set of custom triple trees have been modified to accept the XS stem while modern tapered bearings provide precise steering. To pull this urban warrior to a rapid halt is an industry leading 4 pot Brembo caliper mated to a 320mm disc with power provided by a Nissin master cylinder.
The Metisse frame by the Rickman brothers is a thing of beauty, over engineered, welds to die for and nickel plating mean the body work needs to be first class to match. 66 Motorcycles picked up a highly polished aluminium tank from Japan and then set about modifying it to fit the frame and give the look they were after. The tracker rear is also aluminium but was designed to fit a Triumph Thruxton, but with considerable work including narrowing and shortening, it now fits the frame like it was meant to be. The seat is upholstered in period leather with just enough padding to soak up the odd bump.
Making the Metisse street legal required the fitting of indicators, horn, headlight and tail light, a set of idiot lights and a mirror to see the traffic disappearing behind you. And while the Metisse frame is magnificent, 1970’s electrics are not, so a new wiring harness was made to run all the road going requirements and an Anti Gravity 4 cell Lithium battery has been located under the seat to provide a strong 12v.
The front rim is a Morad item laced to an XS hub while the Dunlop K180 tyres provide both the look and the grip that are befitting of this modern Metisse. The finished machine by 66 Motorcycles is simply a thing of beauty and one the Rickman brothers would no doubt give their approval. Now its owner has the keys to an urban assault warrior that can easily be converted back to the original scrambler classic just the way it was born, as Don used to say, job done!
via PIPEBURN
WRC, Argentine : Serein, mais tendu…
Il faisait encore nuit noire quand les DS3 WRC/Michelin leaders du Rallye d’Argentine 2015 ont quitté le parc d’assistance de Villa Carlos Paz. Direction Capilla del Monte, tout au Nord, et deux heures de liaison avant l’ES7.
Prévue à 7h00, la première assistance a été avance de 40 minutes suite aux modifications du parcours de cette 2e étape du Rallye d’Argentine. En effet, celle qui devait être la plus longue spéciale du rallye (San Marcos-Characato, 56,77 km), a été ramenée à 42,50 km, les 14 premiers kilomètres étant un bourbier impraticable.
Kris Meeke et Mads Ostberg sont sortis leaders du chaos de la première journée qui a éliminé ou retardé huit pilotes officiels. Sébastien Ogier, Andreas Mikkelsen, Ott Tanak et Hayden Paddon sont repartis en Rally2 ce matin. Meeke devance Ostberg d’1min08s, alors que Latvala est 3e à 1min23s5 du leader.
Chez Citroën Racing, on ne se souvenait plus vraiment depuis quand deux DS3 WRC avaient été en tête d’un rallye WRC. Et bien c’était ici, en Argentine, il y a deux ans, quand Sébastien Loeb et Mikko Hirvonen avaient bénéficié des déboires de Seb Ogier dans l’ES7.
Ce matin, l’ambiance était à la fois sereine et un peu tendue chez les Rouges. « Kris a bien dormi », affirmait Marek, le Team-manager. « Il est très concentré. On sait que la journée va être difficile ». Appuyé contre un montant métallique de la structure Citroën, Kris Meeke avait les yeux rivés sur sa DS3 WRC que les mécaniciens terminaient de bichonner. Pour eux aussi, la pression était forte.
Mais elle l’était encore davantage sur les épaules du Britannique, conscient que ce rallye est encore long, mais aussi du fait qu’avec 1min08s d’avance, il n’a jamais été en aussi bonne position pour remporter son premier rallye mondial, le premier pour la Grande-Bretagne depuis le Safari Rally 2002 (Colin McRae). Et ce week-end, c’est un peu de Safari dont il s’agit…
Au signal de Paul Nagle, Kris s’est installé dans sa DS3 WRC. Il a quitté le paddock Citroën sans un mot, sans un regard. Serein, mais tendu…
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