It’s a warm Monday arvo and Tony Hatton (Suzuka 8-Hour winner, Aussie endurance, GP and production racing legend from the 1970s and 1980s) are sharing a beer with Kevin Magee in his local pub, a short walk from his harbourside home in the town of Vaucluse, the most exclusive millionaires only suburb in Sydney. I ask him where it all started. He pauses for a moment…

“There was a poster on the wall in the smoko (lunch) room at the bike shop I worked at during my apprenticeship. It was a picture of Kenny Roberts Snr on the black and yellow Yamaha. One of those above shots. I don’t reckon I ever walked past that poster without stopping to look at it. I was always checking out the tacho to try and work out how fast he was going… I was dreaming. But I knew that’s where I wanted to be…”

Kevin Magee was just an ordinary teenager who loved motorbikes. A dreamer from a small town. But there was a bit more spark in his eye than the average kid. The difference between Magee and most others was sheer guts and determination… 

There are very few riders in the world who have come through the ranks the way Kevin Magee did. So few, in fact, that those were the very riders he ended up competing against in 500 grand prix. For Magee, it was always going to happen. Nobody was ever going to stop the kid from Horsham in Western Victoria…

One of five boys and three girls in a family of 10, Magee spent his early years chasing his older brothers around the family property in Horsham, Victoria. A bit of a late starter in motorcycling terms (at least by today’s standards), Magee, coincidentally just like Beattie and Gardner, didn’t start mucking around with anything motorised until aged 10 when he acquired a Honda Dax minibike. But that wasn’t the first petrol-powered experience young Magee had…

“The first contact I had with a motor was a minibike my brother Damien built. We used wheelbarrow wheels and put a chassis together using water pipe and bolted in one of those old Villiers V-belt two-stroke singles. We shared it, and being the youngest at the time I was always chasing them around for a fang”…

“A bit of a late starter in motorcycling terms, Magee, just like Beattie and Gardner, didn’t start mucking around with anything motorised until aged 10…”

It wasn’t a great success, but Magee’s Dad could see what the boys wanted and that’s when he decided to get the Honda Dax minibike for them, one Sunday arvo from Peter Irwin… Magee’s other brother, Tim purchased a Honda CB125S road bike. 

“Back then we even had a watch one with an actual second hand on it,” Magee grins, “So things began to get competitive. We’d time each other around the dam and the back paddock. It was a case of ‘I can do better’ and it was great fun”…

Tim moved to Naracootie in SA and bought an XR75 and started racing. The Dax was wrecked by now and Kev had lost the tips of two fingers while trying to push start it.  Knowing this, and thinking Kev would do well, Tim took young Kevin to a few races and told him that he reckoned he’d be good at it himself. Kevin approached his parents and eventually a YZ80C replaced the Dax…

“My first race was at Edenhope MiniBike Club. I won a few races and would have won the last race but, with a big lead, slowed on a berm and fell over because I was going too slow to go up high… Riding gear on the day included desert boots, jeans, jumper, helmet, no goggles, and my brother’s winter road gloves the ones that reach your elbow’s, with rabbit fur inside!”

“Mum used to say I was never in the house unless I was asleep or had my head in the fridge”…

Later that year, just before Christmas, Magee’s father passed away. Kevin was only 16 years old at the time. Magee continued to ride that YZ until he was 17. The usual routine was, get up and have breakfast, ride the YZ, have another breakfast and then go to school. Come home and ride the YZ until it was too dark. It never got a piston in its life until it totally blew up, and Magee’s mate Damien Albury rescued Kev by rebuilding it…

The young Magee landed a job at a servo pumping petrol, cutting wood and mowing the lawns after school. This was to help him maintain his YZ and perhaps get another bike, but first he had to get transport. He managed to save up $135 to buy himself a pushbike to get him to and from work and school.

At around the same time Magee had his first ride on a 125. His mate Russell ‘Jagg’s’ Jagger had a CR125 and gave Magee a ride at a Horsham club day. Magee smashed ‘em, and decided it was time to get a bigger bike… Meanwhile, his brother Tim had bought him a CB360 to muck about on in the dirt! Magee reckons that he was the first person in the world to have a dirt bike with a front disc brake! Work experience as a mechanic at Center Point Motorcycles came next.

He had his sights set on an RM370 at the shop, and had put a $50 deposit down. But one weekend while riding with his bosses Baulch and Niewand, Magee impressed the B grade MX riders on 250s by catching them and checking out on mate Kym’s YZ125F. They soon convinced Magee to forget the 370 and by a new RM125N. Kevin borrowed some money from his Mum and bought the bike at cost price. He never looked back. Magee left school and started an apprenticeship as a mechanic at Irwin Motors, a Yamaha dealer and farmers supermarket. He started racing every weekend…

“I raced that RM with success for a long time, then one day Phil Needham invited me out to Mac Park for a ride day. I took the RM. We fitted some tyres to it and out I went. I had no gearing, so I was coming onto the straight in top gear on the rev limit! But it was great fun dicing to get second last, not last! I soon got a loan from Mum and bought myself and RD250F. I was on my Ls, but I didn’t have a car. So to get to work I’d get up, toolbox on my knees, ride to work, flick the stand down and lift the toolbox off my knees so as to not scratch the tank, then start work”… 

“I remember the first time I rode in the rain,” recalls Magee, “I asked Phil if I have to go slower in the wet. He said, ‘Yeah, a fair bit’. I knew I was doing 110km/h into turn one. So I slowed it down to 100km/h. Needless to say I ended up on my arse”!

Magee had spent 1980 getting the hang of the whole road race thing, and liked it, particularly how you came off clean at the end of the day – not covered in mud! He was determined to do more in 1981. 

There was plenty of hype around a new series for the equally as exciting RD250LC. It was called the Millage RD250LC Championship (sponsored by Doug Rober, of Stihl equipment) and Kevin was dead keen to be in it. He pestered his employers, Peter and Gordon, until they eventually gave in and sold him an LC at cost, $1600.00.

“I won the championship using second-hand tyres. Jagg’s and I would sleep in his bench seat FC Sedan at Benalla Caravan Park and scab tyres out of the bin on Sunday nights! I remember that I really needed a front slick for Winton but couldn’t afford it, so Niewand and I put the rear slick off the TZ on the front of the LC and made a new mudguard to fit over the monster tyre. Everyone bagged it, then I torched them…”

Magee also raced it in 250 to 1000cc open races and did well in those. It was push start in those days, and he could start the LC with one nudge. It’d take the TZs until the last lap to catch him. Magee won a YZR30 pocket bike for his efforts, and he’s still got one!

In 1982 Magee started to think about racing a bit more seriously. It was at about this time that the Kenny Roberts poster started to get his mind ticking. He realised that he could do something with this…

“At the time, Young Magee was watching the likes of Rob Phillis, Malcom ‘Wally’ Campbell and Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnston, and aspired to the factory guys…”

“I bought a 1976 TZ350C for $800, or $1000 with rims for wets from Niewand… I crashed the thing but thought, OK, where next? I needed to get to A grade… At the time I was racing in anything I could, 250 – 1000cc events and all that. I raced a borrowed 350LC and won the  again, and I got to A grade on the TZ”.

At the time, Young Magee was watching the likes of Rob Phillis, Malcom ‘Wally’ Campbell and Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnston, and aspired to the factory guys mainly because he wanted to ride the bikes and test himself against the best.

Magee broke the outright lap record at Mt Gambier, which had been set by Rob Phillis on a Mick Hone’s GSX. He also beat Paul Feeney in a reverse direction wet race at Winton. Feeney was on full wets, Magee on an RD350LC on proddie tyres…

“In 1982 Magee started to think about racing a bit more seriously. It was at about this time that the Kenny Roberts poster started to get his mind ticking.”

In August or September 1982, at the final round of the Millage RD350LC series, Magee was in the pits hand fitting a front tyre to his LC. He’d been getting front chatter and was dead set on beating John Harmen for the title. Magee continues the story…

“I was busy with tyre levers and all that, and I looked up and there’s this guy looking over my shoulder. I shrugged him off watching and kept working. Then he came back and introduced himself as Bob Brown. He told me he needed a rider for his Ducati for the Swann Series. It was a Friday and that afternoon I was on the bike testing. I went 2.5-seconds faster than the fastest guy! “

Magee went on that weekend to take the LC series and also race the Bob Brown Ducati, winning both races from Peter Muir at Swann Series at Sandown Series. It was the start of an incredible decade for Kevin Magee, and the biggest turning point in his racing career.

Next, we look at Kevin’s years on the Bob Brown Ducati, and how he and Bob wrote themselves into the motorcycle racing history books by taking on the big guns on factory backed machinery…

Kevin Magee GP Career Stats

500 GRAND PRIX

• 1st x 1- 1988 SPA
• 3rd x 2 –1987 POR. 1988 POR
• 4th x 6 – 1988 NL. 1989 AUS, USA, YUG, NL. 1990 JAP
• 5th x 9 – 1988 NAT, WGER, YUG, GB. 1989 JAP, AUT, FRA, SWE. 1991 MAL
• 6th x 5 – 1988 AUT, SWE, BRA. 1989 GB, BRA
• 7th x 4 – 1988 JAP. 1989 WGER, BEL, CZE
• 9th x 2 –1988 FRA. 1993 JAP
• 10th x 1 – 1987 NL

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

• 1987 15th/11pts (Yamaha)
• 1988 5th/138pts (Yamaha)
• 1989 5th/138.5pts (Yamaha)
• 1990 21st/13pts (Suzuki)
• 1991 19th/19pts (Suzuki/Yamaha)
• 1993 25th/7pts (Yamaha)

OTHER MAJOR RESULTS

• 1981 Millage RD250LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1982 Millage RD350LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1983 Victorian Thunderbike Champion
• 1983 NSW Formula European Champion
• 1985 2nd NZ superbike race, Bob Brown Ducati
• 1985 9th Suzuka 8 Hour with Rob Phillis
• 1985 RZ Master Series State and National winner
• 1985 TZ750 top ten Swann Series
• 1985 1st place Nippon Denso 500, Winton
• 1985 3rd Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour (on domestic Yamaha Superbike with Mike Dowson)

• 1986 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 1st Arai 500
• 1986 1st Lakeside Hub 300
• 1986 2nd TTF1, Sugo, Japan
• 1986 2nd Swann Series on YZR500
• 1987 All Japan TTF1 Champion, won every race
• 1987 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Martin Wimmer
• 1987 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1987 1st Swann Series

• 1988 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Wayne Rainey
• 1988 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1989 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour
• 1991 2nd / 5th World Superbike, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 1st / 2nd World Superbike, Phillip Island
• 1992 2nd All Japan 500 Championship
• 1992 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour

Kevin Magee is the only rider ever to have finished on top of the podium in the four premier class World Championships – World 500cc Grand Prix

• World TT Formula One 
• World Superbikes
• World Endurance 

With World TT Formula One now redundant, this milestone can never be broken.

The post Legends: The Career Of Kevin Magee, Part One, Early Life appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

When Steve heard that Paul Feeney, the then importer of MV Agusta in Australia, was selling the V593 that John Kocinski won the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca in 1993 and the Australian GP on in 1994, Steve just had to have it. Naturally, when Steve offered me a ride I didn’t hesitate in saying yes, I could not get on a plane quick enough. I think this is the first time I’ve felt true fear from a motorcycle.

Check out our other racer tests here…

The bike is invaluable and has a lot of important history. Cagiva entered Grand Prix racing in 1990 and had to battle against the ultra rich Japanese manufacturers that had seemingly unlimited budgets in days when expenses and rider salaries were peaking. Still the small factory with the big heart pushed on and eventually, against the odds, rose to the winner’s podium. Some believe that the odds of them winning a world title was more than likely, had finances not restricted the forward progression.

Eddie Lawson gave Cagiva their debut victory on a drying track in the 1991 Hungarian Grand Prix. Lawson left Cagiva before he retired from racing but other stars were drawn to the passionate Italian team with Randy Mamola, Mat Mladin, Doug Chandler also riding the bike at one stage their careers.

But it was the determined and highly talented John Kocinski that gave Cagiva the most champaign, winning at Laguna Seca in what was to be the final grand prix in the USA for 12 long years. After completing the season on the updated V594 John finished the 1994 championship in third position but sadly that was the end of the line and Cagiva went broke.

The Ride
I’m pacing around nervously as the bike gets warmed up by the legendary Dick Smart, it is a nerve wrecking time as it is probably the most expensive bike I may ever get to ride. Daryl Beattie obviously picked up on my panicked pacing. “Just stay relaxed and ride it normally. It’ll just feel like a superbike, only faster and lighter. Watch those carbon brakes until they’re up to temp,” Daryl Beattie, along for a ride, reassures me in that weird way a surgeon reassures you before cutting your chest open with a hacksaw, “Keep an eye on the temperature too and watch the powervalves, they seem to be jamming up a little at 9500rpm”…

The next minute I’m being pushed down pit lane by ex Mick Doohan GP mechanic, Australian Dick Smart, just like the professional riding you see on the TV. I let the clutch out and the V4 fires into life. The racer comes out in me almost straight away. I’ve already got my knee down by turn two.

The first run down the back straight of Queensland Raceway I short shift and load the bike up, holding the throttle open in third gear to clear it and after a few coughs the digital tachometer suddenly screams past 9500rpm. I can feel my shoulder joints pulling apart as I shift at 12500rpm before grabbing the brakes for turn three, they felt just like normal brakes in that moment due to them still being cold.

Out of turn three I feed the throttle on slowly to lean the engine out a little and get through that rough patch at 9000rpm. Again, the engine clears its throat and I’m struggling to hold on, let alone keep the front wheel down. All I can feel is wheel-spin then the front wheel lifting up, this thing hammers. I’ve never felt acceleration like it, not even on a turbo or a World Superbike or drag bike.

I’m cautious through the two left-handers on my first time around but I feed it on a little on the short straight before turn six, just to get a feel for the power delivery. Onto the chute for the first time the engine coughs again but once it clears, the bike explodes in a surge of acceleration and shifting through the ‘box via the electronic reverse-pattern quick-shifter delivers a feeling like no other. Nothing feels like this – no four-stroke could be this exciting.

I feel like the Cagiva GP500 has knocked 20 years off my age, I’m 20 and fearless again. I squeeze the Brembo front brake lever at the end of the straight. One finger is all it takes but I have this picture in my head of the rotors suddenly getting up to temperature and locking the wheel before I can modulate the pressure. But soon I’m trail-braking into corners and I’ve got the hang of feeding the power on progressively out of the turns. I can’t believe how much concentration this bike is sapping from me.

The Dunlop tyres are up to temperature now and with more confidence in them, I’m pushing the Cagiva further and further on its side every lap. But I’m more than aware that I need to stand the bike up as much as possible before opening the throttle. Make no mistake, this ain’t no proddie or 600. Wind it on mid-corner on this thing and I’m going to be flying pretty high.

The chassis is ultra-stiff and the bike is so light. You’d really have to have an intimate relationship with the machine and a lot of laps under your belt to decipher confidence-inspiring feedback from it. Once you knew the bike, though, it’d be a brilliant talker. In my short session I was just relying on my past experience with slick tyres and knowing how far to push them at my very moderate pace.

The rear Ohlins GP-spec shock is predictably stiff and, to be honest, probably in need of a service after sitting around for so long, especially with my weight on it. The front suspension action is firm but nowhere near what I’d imagined. In fact the machine is riding the nasty bumps at Queensland Raceway quite well, with the exception of getting air over the bumps at the end of the main straight.

The session is coming to an end and my dream is almost over, just as I start to get smooth and comfortable, I put in what I feel are a few half decent laps about as quick as I could go on a stock 1000cc roadbike.

Not surprisingly the V593 feels better the faster I go and on the last lap I do just what Daryl said. I ride it like I’d ride a normal bike running into the turns fast, standing it up and winding it on harder and taking it right through to 13000rpm, 1000rpm short of redline. On the last lap I feel like I’m detached from the world. Like I used to feel when I was on a hot lap and in my ‘groove’ in my racing days.

No bike has made me feel like that since I stopped racing and I don’t think anything else ever will. I think I’m in love. I ride back into the pits and hop off the bike feeling eerily calm and sedate. The 1993 Cagiva GP500 represented the pinnacle of the Italian firm’s 500cc Grand Prix competitiveness. It was passion and drive that got them there, however, a World Title was not meant to be as they ran out of money soon after during the following season on the V594 version, the last of the GP500.

World Champion John Kocinski Talks 

Sitting down with the legendary John Kocinski, I got to learn more about the bike that had a short lived life in GP racing but a long lived legacy. John spoke about the team’s passion and excitement that surpassed the want to make money out of the sport, which is what motor racing should be about.

JW – It has been said that this was the bike that turned Cagiva from also-rans to almost wins and if you didn’t take the ride Cagiva would have pulled the pin. What is your take on that?

John Kocinski – Yes, it is probably true but a lot of my greatest memories have been when I rode for Cagiva. It was a company of great passion.

JW – When you think back on the V593 and V594 and the results, particularly the wins you achieved on the bike how do you feel?

John Kocinski – It is one of my greatest accomplishments to win on a machine that no one else other than Eddie Lawson has won on. It was heartbreaking when Cagiva could not continue in 1995 because we were so close to having a machine that could win a World Championship.

JW – How much of the work, in development terms, was done when you arrived at the team?

John Kocinski – Obviously, there had been work done, but it was far from complete.

JW – What were the strengths and weaknesses of the V593 and V594?

John Kocinski – The strengths were the agility and steering. The weakness was the power band.

JW – Was this motorcycle capable of winning the title?

John Kocinski – Yes, most definitely.

JW – Were you keen to stay on for 1995 if the team had survived?

John Kocinski – Absolutely. I loved the team, the engineers, I had great mechanics. It was just a matter of making some small improvements to the power delivery and handling.

JW – Daryl Beattie said that overall he rates the bike well and that both yourself and Eddie Lawson proved that it is a reasonable motorcycle. But were you guys over-riding to compensate for lack of performance or was the bike really that good?

John Kocinski –  No matter what machine you ride there are always issues. But definitely in 1994, the machine was the best it had ever been. I think the results say the same.

JW – What did it for you with 500s – the challenge, the acceleration, the adrenaline or the fear?

John Kocinski – That’s exactly what does it, I think, for everyone. The challenge, the acceleration, the adrenaline and fear.

JW – Give us one word that sums up the Cagiva.

John Kocinski – Passion.

500c Legend, Daryl Beattie Chat

Catching up with ex 500 GP racer, Daryl Beattie, after his laps on the Cagiva, it’s safe to say that he’s hooked again despite not riding a 500 GP bike since he retired back in 1997. There were some similarities between the motors on the Cagiva and his old Yamaha but the frame was a new experience for Daryl. “That’s the most fun I’ve had since I retired in 1997,” declared Beattie as he tried to wipe the smile off his face after leaving blackies all over Queensland Raceway on the V593 Cagiva GP500.

“That’s the most laps I’ve done on a track for years. I’ve only done those commentating laps at Australian Grand Prix but as soon as I left pit lane all the memories of 500 GP came back. Nothing beats a 500.” Admitted Daryl, “I felt good on the bike and it all started to come back to me.

“I remember this bike well and always wondered what it would be like to ride. It feels similar engine-wise to the Yamaha I rode in 1994 but it handles better. It’s really sweet and the carbon brakes are just awesome when you haven’t used them for a long time”.

Daryl says he always knew the Cagiva was a competitive machine in the right hands, “The King (Eddie Lawson) did a lot for Cagiva and Kocinski had some good results on the bike. There’s no doubt that it had more potential so it is a shame that this was the second last one.”

“It feels really good to ride a race bike again. You just can’t beat the way they steer, stop or accelerate. The thing just wants to wheelstand in every gear. Unreal…. I’ve gotten a taste for it again so I’ll have to talk Mick (Doohan) into coming out to some ride days with me”!

1993 Cagiva GP500 V593 Specifications 

POWER: 195hp@12600rpm
TORQUE: 75.5ft-lbs]@12000rpm
WET WEIGHT: 130kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 21 litres

ENGINE: Liquid-cooled, 80-degree V4, twin crank, two-stroke, 56 x 50.6mm bore x stroke, 498cc, two twin-choke 36mm electronic power-jet flat-slide Mikunis, crankcase reed-valve induction, pressurised airbox, titanium expansion chambers with carbon-fibre mufflers, electronically controlled cylindrical power valves – five transfer, three exhaust, electronic ignition with programmable advance curve linked to throttle opening, exhaust powervalve and carburettor power jet, NGK plugs, single plain piston ring pistons, needle roller small-end and roller big-end bearings, straight-cut gear to clutch from right-hand end of lower crank

GEARBOX & CLUTCH: six-speed cassette-style, ten possible ratios for first and fourth, seven for second and fifth, nine for third and sixth, drum selection, electronic quick-shift, dry multi-plate, seven friction and six steel plates, six springs

CHASSIS: Twin-spar aluminium with adjustable steering angle, carbon-fibre swingarm, Wheelbase: 1390mm, Rake: 23°± + 1 degree, Trail: 95mm\
SUSPENSION: Fully adjustable inverted carbon-fibre Ohlins forks, Ohlins fully adjustable shock
BRAKES: Twin 320mm carbon-carbon front rotors, Brembo four-piston monoblock calipers and Brembo radial master-cylinder, Brembo pads, single 190mm carbon-carbon rear rotor, Brembo twin-piston monoblock caliper, Brembo pads
WHEELS & TYRES: Ferrari hollow-section carbon-fibre wheels, 3.5 x 17in, 6.0 x 17in, Michelin slicks

PRICE: Over one million dollars

1993 Cagiva GP500 V593 Gallery

The post Racer Test: John Kocinski 1993 Cagiva 500 V593 appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....