Raceco UK

25/04/2026

17/04/2026

Today is Bruno Scola’s birthday. He would have been 80 today. I hadn’t seen Bruno since 1997, but in 2022 I travelled with a friend to Mandello del Lario and got to meet him. Bruno was instrumental in my getting involved with tuning Moto Guzzi engines. It’s when I saw what he was doing that first inspired me to quit my job as a photographer and get involved in racing. When I was in Mandello I took a photo of Bruno that appeared in my book Artists and Artisans that accompanied my solo exhibition in the UK. After I took the photo we went to a restaurant and had a meal together. I was delighted that we could spend some time together after twenty five years. Bruno was very kind man and I’m sure that he is missed by many, myself included.

13/04/2026

Video or not? In 1989 I bought my first flowbench, a Superflow 110, to test my ported Moto Guzzi cylinder heads. By lucky coincidence whilst purchasing the flowbench on a stand at a motorsport show at Earl’s Court in London I met a Porsche specialist and racer, Mauro Andreini. He was buying a Superflow 901 dynamometer to test his engines. We started talking and he asked if I would test his Porsche heads. His industrial unit was quite close to where I lived at the time. Whilst visiting him at his premises I also met his neighbour, Tony Price, who was an MGB specialist and also a racer. Because of this chance encounter I learnt a lot about airflow in cylinder heads in the first few months of my flowbench ownership. As the story is quite long I’m thinking of doing a video where I talk about my experiences as writing about it would take several pages. What do you all think, would you be interested in hearing about this? If so I will make the video.

08/04/2026

Photos of me taken with my Moto Guzzi light weight touring bike in the early 1980s. The Guzzi was 950cc SP1000 with Le Mans heads, 36mm carbs, SS cam, Marzocchi forks, Koni rear suspension units, Spondon floating discs and Astralite wheels. The photos were taken by Kel Edge on my Hasselblad 500C camera.

30/03/2026

For people who are interested in buying Raceco T Shirts and Sweatshirts please see link below. Available directly from the manufacturer, Kachina Clothing, in different sizes and colours. https://kachinaclothing.com/collections/raceco

27/03/2026

My friend Gavin and I drove down to Marbella yesterday to meet Ian Cobby for a curry. Ian used to ride the Team Clarke-Raceco and the Three Cross-Raceco Moto Guzzi racing motorcycles between 1988 and 1997. He won two championships on Guzzis and had many race wins and podiums in that time. It was nice to catch up and talk a bit about the good old days.

24/03/2026

One of the last engines I built before closing Raceco UK in March 2014 was a Duratec 2.2 litre engine. The result of years of continuing development. 89mm bore, 88mm stroke using with Arrow crank and rods designed by David Wood to my specifications paying particular attention to the balance factor. This resulted in a crank that was heavier than stock, but perfectly counter balanced which allowed it to rev to 9,000 rpm with no problems at mean piston speed of around 26 metres per second. The head was ported by me with 37mm inlet and 32mm exhaust valves I had made. I also had the 54mm throttle bodies made by Jenvey. Everybody said that these were too big, the dyno showed otherwise. In fact the flowbench showed that they caused a restriction and I would have been better off with 56mm ones. I also had camshafts made to my specifications. The normally aspirated engine made 315bhp and 200 ft lb of torque. There were so many changes and custom parts made that I often joked that the only standard parts were the valve cap split collets. Only a few examples of this engine were ever made. A customer on the Isle of Man said that when fitted to his Caterham 7 it would wheel spin in 6th gear whilst chasing motorcycles on the circuit during Mad Sunday. I drove another client’s 620 Kg Caterham on the full circuit at Brands Hatch. It was very fast! Somewhere I have the dyno sheet and magazine articles about this. When I eventually find them I will post them here.

16/03/2026

We raced at Monza in 1994. It was wet race and the track became very slippery. Unfortunately Richard Defago, who was riding the Three Cross-Raceco Moto Guzzi, crashed, luckily not doing any damage to himself. Even though the conditions were far from ideal I clocked Richard at 141mph on the front straight using a radar gun loaned to me by Robert Holden. The race was on Sunday, we drove back to England, fixed the bike and were testing at Mallory Park on the Wednesday.

07/03/2026

Remembering Jimmy Adamo who was tragically killed on this day, 7th of March 1993. I was at Daytona with Manfred Hecht from Raceco Cycles in Brooklyn that year. We had driven down from New York for Speed Week. I was pit crewing for Pete Johnson (and possibly Ron McGill as well? I can’t remember if it was that year or not). In the morning I remember Jimmy was playing with his daughters on a quad bike. He was having problems with the tachometer on his Ducati that I had tried to sort out for him. I’d met Jimmy before at Manfred’s workshop. He was quite a character. During the race Jimmy crashed and unfortunately lost his life. Manfred had already gone back to New York and I had the unenviable task of calling on the phone to tell him the news. I remember Eddie Lawson having won the race, (the last win of his career) was on the podium smiling and laughing when someone came up to him and said something in his ear. His dimenor changed and he became very serious. I think he was told about Jimmy. I saw Reno Leoni, (in the photo with Jimmy) who had tuned the Ducati motorcycles that Jimmy had raced, leaning against a chain link fence on his haunches looking incredibly sad. Having been involved in motorcycle racing for quite a while it wasn’t the first or last time that such a tragedy struck leaving devastated relatives and friends behind. Jimmy was great racer and I hope this writing will help keep his memory alive.

28/02/2026

Ian Cobby On the Team Clarke-Raceco Moto Guzzi going over the mountain at Cadwell Park in 1992.

18/02/2026

The front cover of Motorcycle Sport from March 1992 featuring Ian Cobby on the Team Clarke-Raceco Moto Guzzi. A year later Chris Clarke decided to start racing a Ducati and I started running a Moto Guzzi Daytona with the support of Three Cross Motorcycles. We came second in the championship in 1993 with Torquil Ross-Martin on board. It was written in the press that I had shot myself in the foot as I had ported the heads of the 900cc Ducati that Ian Cobby won the championship on. The truth was that even with Torquil riding the wheels off the Guzzi it wasn't a competitive race bike yet. It would take another two years of development to turn it into being truly competitive.