THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE TRACK   (SCANDINAVIA’S QUICKEST TRIPLES)

Colin Fairall and Magnus Carlsson are often accused on having too many cubic centimetres in their 750 c.c. Rob North triples.   “A 750 cannot be that quick” one hears the fellow racers groan.   But it has been shown to be the case.

Two seasons in a row have the lads from Gothenburg secured the 750 victory in the classic Cup.

In 1995 it was Colin’s turn and one year later it was Magnus’ turn to have the number one plate and knock Colin off the top spot.

There would never have been a Team Sunshine if then the 53 year old ex-patriot had not started racing

From the Isle of Wight in the 70’s on a DBD34 Gold Star, together with his mate, Bill Carr also on a goldie, at Brands and Snetterton, racing with BMCRC (Bemsee).     One championship point was gained at Brands with a 9^th place, racing against G50’s Manx’s and kwacker 500’s. Blow-ups and lack of funds put a stop to his Clubman racing career….A Seeley G50 was on the cards but that is another story!!

In 1977 Colin  moved to Gothenburg in Sweden to continue with his line of work in Marine electronics. (there was also a woman involved!).

He lived a relatively quiet life for a few years before the racing bug began to bite again, and in 1987 fired up the goldie on a swedish track again.

NORTON RULES !!

The same year he unearthed a job lot of Norton Dominator parts in a friend of a friends shed in the Isle of Wight. It was revealed that the sum of the parts was a nearly complete 1965 Dominator.  It was snapped up for £200 and resulted in a budget build classic racer.

Regrettably the Domi motor was not up to classic racing hard use and blew up rather too often.  (Flywheels,pistons,con-rods went to the bin).

A dealer in scond-hand clssic parts in central Sweden came to the rescue with a 750 Commando motor

Which was purloined, and mounted in the featherbed frame, after re-balancing the crank to 86%.  (Original balance factor was 56%) due to the fact that the Commando engine originally is rubber mounted, and the featherbed is solid mounting.   It turned out that the engine was almost vibration free at 7000 rpm.

Now the Domi really began to get on the pace, and on occasion went away from a well known rival (Tassen Bengtsson) on his 1000cc. H-D racer. His granddad on one occasion came up an gave Colin a hard time..”What are you up to ? you’re leaving my lad behind!!

Around this time, at the end of the eighties, interest for Classic racing took a sharp upturn from having been almost dead.  The first really big competition in Sweden was the ”20-years race” at Linkoping in 1985, which was at the start, thought as a one time event to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the MCHK club.  Interest for the event was overwhelming and since then it became a regular fixture in the racing calendar.

At that time there was a lot of ’ratbikes’ but these have died a natural death, and now clean well prepared machines are the norm.

At a regularity competition in Gothenburg, Colin noticed a rider which had promise, young Magnus Carlsson who was going through a bad patch with his TRITON powered by a 686c.c. Nourish Triumph

Motor.

”We knew each other but had only met briefly, but became mates”.

Team Sunshine was formed 1989 and at that time was Ola Maltesson (Gold Star owner) one of the team.    Lars ”Lurch” Stalegard was also in the team on a Norton Commando, but today is a passive member as he moved to Norway to be with the light of his life (his wife) and built boats for a living.

”A real waste of talent, a real good rider, I hope we haven’t seen the last of him”

Besides the solo riders, sidecar pilot Lars Gerhardsson from Tjorn was also in the team on his 840c.c. Weslake twin in a HS chassis.  Lars took the championship in his class one season.

Magnus’ troublesome Nourish 686 met its cruel end when he lent it to one of his chums ’to have a go’

He had a go alright, he used it to break a concrete triangular block in two pieces.  He survived but the bike did not.  It was just skip fodder.

Today Colin and Magnus ride very similar machines, these being ROB NORTH triples.   Colin’s is powered by a Triumph T150V 750c.c. and Magnus’ a T160 750c.c.   The motors are almost identical except that the T160 has sloping cylinders.  Both are 1972 models and are tuned as much as the rules and regulations allow.  Megacycle cams, Carillo rods and lightened cranks together with ported and gas-flowed heads.   Carburation is by AMAL concentrics (33m.m.m.), with slight internal mods.

Contact has been made with P&M motorcycles in west London, (Richard Peckett) who did the major part of the gas-flowing, and Triple Cycles of Ilford for all the trick bits.   The time consuming tasks. were undertaken in the “Torslanda Hospital”, otherwise known as the Research and Development lab situated in the garden shed.

In our opinion the crank and crankcase has one function… to not fly apart and rotate smoothly.  The power gains come from the cylinder head.

Sometimes I can examine an inlet tract for a long time and imagine how air/petrol molecules travel through. (venturi effect ?, dynamic and static pressure difference???)

These thought processes have,nevertheless, produced results: Today quite a number of fellow racers have used heads from “Torslanda Hospital”   Colin became 750 champion 1995 and the following year it was Magnus’ turn.  In 1996 Magnus had 9 heat wins and a 3^rd.

1996 was not a lucky year for Colin…In Norway during practice ,a highsider resulted in a sore head and damaged bike. (Knocked out for 2 minutes).

Team Sunshine went really international in 1996 when Colin went to Daytona for the Classic races and managed a creditable 6^th place.

In July Colin,Magnus and Danish chum, Lars Lydike, travelled to Belgium to take part in the races in Chimay..(Real road racing).   Magnus managed a second place, but Colins gearbox decided to eat itself and a DNF in the first race.(too much power???).

At the Seasons close I managed sixth in the championship, so it was not so bad after missing four races!

In Sweden there is intense rivalry between the “shrimp stranglers” of Gothenburg and the zero-eights of Stockholm, both in Classic racing and Drag racing.    Two seasons in a row the Gothenburg boys been on the top of the podium, and the 08 boys after the top spot first on a Laverda and then on a Ducati “, but with no success. (chuckles from Magnus!).

The Scandinavian Classic racing scene year for year is becoming more competitive and competition harder . This is good for racers and spectators alike.   Colin and Magnus are really looking forward to fresh battles with the “zero eights  and their Ducati, not to mention all the other 750 lads.

(Excerpt from Swedish MCM magazine 97)