WRC, Rally Poland, ES7 : Ogier repasse en tête

La plus longue spéciale du rallye (39,12 km) a permis à Sébastien Ogier de reprendre les commandes du Rallye de Pologne pour 1.7 seconde devant Mikkelsen et 2.4 secondes sur Tanak.

Il a rarement fait aussi chaud aux confins de la Pologne, de la Russie et de la Lituanie. Même les cigognes cherchent désespérément un peu d’ombre.

La spéciale n°7, Stanczyski, est la plus longue du rallye avec près de 40 kilomètres à parcourir sur un rythme élevé. Cette spéciale est vraiment magnifique, peut-être la plus belle du rallye.Pour ce second passage, Sébastien Ogier bénéficiait de pistes balayées. Et le Français est passé à l’attaque.

En 18min58s2, il a remporté cette spéciale avec 1s2 d’avance sur Jari-Matti Latvala et 4s4 sur Mikkelsen, et repris les commandes du rallye devant le Norvégien : « On a fait un choix de pneus un peu trop agressif en soft », déclarait le double champion du monde à l’arrivée, alors que Latvala louait la robustesse du pneu LTX Force Michelin après avoir tapé dans un trou.

Les concurrents qui ont privilégié un choix de pneus soft cet après-midi ont quelque peu souffert sur cette longue spéciale, comme Elfyn Evans, Kris Meeke ou encore le leader Ott Tanak, relégué à 16 secondes. L’Estonien se retrouve désormais 3^e au général à 2s4 d’Ogier.

Les quatre premiers sont groupés en moins de 10 secondes puisque Jari-Matti Latvala (VW) est 4^e à 9s5. Hayden Paddon, qui a chaussé des pneus hard, est 5^e devant son équipier Thierry Neuville (6^e) et Robert Kubica (7^e). Ces trois-là sont groupés en moins de 5 secondes.

Morgan’s EV3 concept shocks the 3 Wheeler into the 21st Century

Set to be revealed at Goodwood this weekend, the EV3 concept is the second fully electric car from Morgan, and is said to take an entirely different approach to electric motoring, with more emphasis placed on fun…

When we think about it, the 3 Wheeler is an ideal candidate to be ‘electrified’. At just 450kg, the electric 3 Wheeler is even lighter than its combustion-engined counterpart, and with a single 75kW electric motor (delivering circa 100bhp to the rear wheel), its range is apparently in the region of 150 miles – that's rather impressive. We’d be lying if we said we wouldn’t miss that rorty V-twin, though. Now, where are our goggles?

You can find several non-electrified Morgan 3 Wheelers for sale in the Classic Driver Market. 

WRC, Rally Poland, ES4 : Tanak leader en Pologne / Tanak in front

Les concurrents ont déjà parcouru trois spéciales ce matin. L’Estonien Ott Tanak (Ford/Michelin) est leader devant trois Volkswagen, Andreas Mikkelsen (+4s9), Sébastien Ogier (+10s5) et Jari-Matti Latvala (+12s2).

Une centaine de kilomètres séparent Mikolajki de l’arrivée de Babki (ES4, 14,65 km) à travers la campagne polonaise, un peu plus si l’on suit les « grands » axes via Elk et Olecko. C’est l’option que nous avons choisie aujourd’hui, après avoir emprunté les voies vicinales qui cheminent de lacs en lacs pendant les reconnaissances.

La première spéciale, Gorklo (13 km) a été remportée par Andreas Mikkelsen (VW) et le Norvégien a pris la tête du rallye devant Tanak et Ogier. Puis Goldap (14,75 km) a profité à Ott Tanak (Ford) qui, à son tour, a pris les rênes de l’épreuve pour 1/10^e de seconde !

C’est donc séparé par une dizaine de secondes que le top-ten s’est présenté au départ de Babki (ES4), une spéciale qui propose une alternance de parties larges et étroites, sur des pistes tantôt dures, tantôt soft. La fin est ultra-rapide.

Avec nos stickers bleus, verts, jaunes et orange collés sur le pare-brise, on était confiant pour accéder à l’arrivée de Babki. Mais il nous manquait le ROUGE ! Nous avons donc dû rebrousser chemin pour accéder à un point-spectateurs, à environ 3 km du départ.

Le passage valait le coup d’œil avec une longue ligne-droite et un freinage hyper violent pour une épingle droite. Emporté par sa fougue, Andreas Mikkelsen est allé toucher le talus extérieur, alors qu’Hayden Paddon et Ott Tanak ont sans doute réalisé les deux plus beaux passages.

Ott Tanak, qui bénéficie de piste nettoyées, a remporté sa seconde spéciale d’affilée devant les VW d’Ogier et Mikkelsen, et les Hyundai de Neuville et Paddon. Au général, l’Estonien est leader devant Mikkelsen, Ogier et Latvala. Hayden Paddon et Kris Meeke se disputent la dernière place du top-5 provisoire.

After this morning’s three stages, Estonia’s Ott Tanak (Ford/Michelin) tops the order in Poland, chased by Volkswagen’s Andreas Mikkelsen (+4.9s), Sébastien Ogier (+10.5s) and Jari-Matti Latvala (+12.2s).

The run from Mikolajki to the end of ‘Babki’ (SS4, 14.65km) is about 100km if you drive through the Polish countryside. It’s a little longer if you use the main roads via Elk and Olecko, but that’s the option we chose today after exploring the smaller roads that take you via some picturesque lakes during recce.

Today’s first stage (‘Gorklo’, 13km) was won by Mikkelsen (VW) who emerged briefly in front, ahead of Tanak and Ogier. The visit to ‘Goldap’ (14.75km) saw the lead become the property of Ott Tanak (Ford) by just one-tenth of a second!

The top 10 were covered by around 10 seconds at the start of SS4 (‘Babki’), a mixture of wide and narrow lanes on alternately hard-packed and soft ground. The final part of the stage is extremely fast.

We were pretty sure we would be authorised to drive to the Stop Control thanks to the blue, green, yellow and orange stickers we have on the windscreen. But no, we didn’t have the RED one, so we had to drive back to a spectator point, about three kilometres into the test.

That said, it was a great viewing spot, with a long straight feeding into a right-hand hairpin for which the drivers had to be very hard on the brakes. Mikkelsen hit the bank on the outside of the turn, while Hayden Paddon and Tanak were the two most spectacular drivers.

Tanak, who has the benefit of cleaner conditions, went on to claim his second straight stage win ahead of VW’s Ogier and Mikkelsen and Hyundai duo Neuville and Paddon.

The Estonian currently tops the overall leaderboard, followed by Mikkelsen, Ogier and Latvala. Paddon and Kris Meeke are battling hard for fifth.

MACCO MOTORS FOXY LADY

Billionaire. Has a nice ring to it, usually. That is until images of gambling fat cats in pinstripe suits spring to mind. Each to their own and all that but we prefer human stories of endeavour, and shed based ones all the better. At Bike Shed London we met a bunch of awesome people, one being John Bloor. A chap who started his working life as a plasterer and in 1983 scraped together £150,000 to buy Triumph Motorcycles from the receivers. Let us all rejoice that the man must have infinite vision, unwavering determination and balls the size of planets. Last year one in every five new motorcycles bought in the U.K. was a Triumph and globally nearly 55,000 units were built and sold.

O.K. so this is starting to sound like some poorly prepared investor presentation but we have a lot to thank John and his team for. Without this modern base for customisers, builders and shed fettlers to work on a large void would exist in the current custom scene. The Bonneville and Scrambler are so frequent on our pages for very good reason, they’re a great bike, period.

Two other guys we met were Jose and Tito from Macco Motors in Cadiz, Spain. What they lack in comparative zeros on the bank balance they more than make up for in charisma and craftsmanship. They don’t just build Triumphs but when they do, the formula works and customers keep ordering more. The Foxy Lady was supposed to be a build for the guys to enjoy for themselves, but customers pay the bills so the spec changed to suit.

The donor in question is a 2010 Bonnie T100 EFi, that was offered in very good original condition. Jose and Tito don’t hold stock but prefer to find the right donor to match the owner’s budget and expectations. It’s now commonplace for a prospective customer to source a bike from their home market, ship to the builder of choice for the work to be carried out, and then ship it back, reducing the time and admin of re-registering the bike. Although here in the U.K. the DVLA are pretty well set up for importing and the process is electronic and simple. This Foxy Lady is bound for home shores but a sister bike will soon be sent across the pond to Miami.

One component that is subject to the budget constraints of mass manufacturing in a competitive global market is the forks. Gold anodised Scando-suspenders suggest quality to the masses but the associated costs of fitting such exotic parts wouldn’t yield the aforementioned sales figures, so the Bonneville leaves Hinkley rolling on a perfectly good set of conventional forks, fit for the majority of real world situations. Custom customers are a bit more demanding so a pair of upsidedowners were liberated from a Ducati Monster 1100 EVO, complete with Brembo radials, Free Spirits triple trees enable simple fitment, and look the business black anodised matching the painted fork legs. They might not be gold either but the rear shocks are by Öhlins and fully adjustable.

To give that second Brembo disc a home a Thunderbird hub was laced to a 19″ rim and the spindle re-machined, this thing should stop on a Peseta. Metzeler Tourance dual sport rubber grip well in all conditions and come with just the slightest whiff of off-road without screaming faux-scrambler. The tall front wheel, squat forks and de-cluttered cockpit give a hunkered-down, beefy look. We like that. Biltwell bars with LSL clubman grips, a single mini speedo, race levers and a Bates headlight sit well alongside the stock switchgear.

The Triumph subframe is an easy one to plug the ends and leave as is, but it always looks infinitely neater to run a loop to keep the job tidy, a kick up helps visually and allows the rear fender to nestle higher up for a bit more clearance. The guys opted for real farmyard leather for the saddle, rather than the futuristic alternative, which should become supple and marked with age. You can’t put a price on real patina.

The fuel tank was stripped bare and re-coated in matt black, with the side sections receiving just a few layers of lacquer and a gold pin stripe. Subtle and classy for one, but also the raw scallops of steel help to shrink the sometimes bulbous Bonnie tank.

The sweeping yet sectional stainless exhausts were designed and fabricated by Roberto from GR Exhausts. In a bid to steer clear of the more obvious and classic reverse megaphones Roberto has integrated oval versions of their GP end cans. The raw finish of the super neat welds help add that all important new but used look to the finished bike. Not only that, it’ll sound fantastic with the baffles pulled.

The Foxy Lady is now loose on U.K. roads, ready for the British Summer, which I think was here between 10:37 this morning and 13:19 this afternoon, I do hope the new owner enjoyed himself.  It might sound a touch pretentious laying thanks at the feet of a shrewd business man for the steady stream of fantastic custom Triumphs we’ve seen over the last few years, but seriously, look at the pictures above. Spreadsheets, bank managers, bore-mongers from Brussels and the press probably would have seen a radiator fitted to this icon some time ago. We are very, very glad John didn’t listen.

Jose and Tito will take on builds of other marques but as demonstrated here, completely nail the Bonnie and Scrambler. To reach the guys head to the Macco Motors website, follow the progress of other builds on the Facebook page or wistfully daydream on Instagram.

As usual, fantastic photos by Sergio Ibarra from Semimate agency.

via The Bike Shed