‘Dobsy’ (Paul Dobbs) is off to Ireland on the 4^th May for the North West 200 then on to the Isle of Man for the TT at the end of May. Before taking on the northern circuits, the Kiwi who won the Australian p3 500 Classic racing title last year raced at the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed at Australia’s Eastern Creek over Easter.

“There were three bikes and crew from New Zealand there, Sam Smith on Peter Lodge’s ES2 Norton, Terry Martin on Dave Kenna’s Manx Norton and Dobsy on the SBR Norton Commando”. Dobsy had lived in Sydney for a few years and on leaving Australia for the UK held the lap record for F3 which stood for quite a few years. “This is one of my favorite tracks in the world, lots of change of elevation, flowing and with a heart stopping first turn, but I hadn’t ridden on it for 12 years,” says Dobsy.

“Friday was a practice day and we were entered in the Post Classic up to 750cc class. Running in our race was the Post Classic Unlimited and Forgotten Era bikes - all much bigger capacity and more powerful than the Commando. We qualified 1^st in our class and ahead of the unlimited class bikes but 5^th overall.

“In the first race I was shocked to find the bike was detonating at the end of the start finish straight and had to shut the throttle to stop it. I was puzzled as we have never had this problem. I managed to win our class but was beaten home by Robert Young on a 1000cc Ducati and ended up 5^th outright. We had changed to a different fuel for qualifying and we guessed this had caused the detonation problem so we put bigger jets in to try and fix it.

“During Race 2 the problem was slightly better but I still had to close the throttle to stop the detonation. I managed to beat the Ducati home this time and ended 4^th overall. Bigger jets were fitter and the head scratching continued as we lined up for the 1^st Barry Sheene Fastest 40 Race. I had qualified 8^th and after a good start and some close dicing with Robert and an RG500 and other big Jap Forgotten Era bikes I finished in 6^th place but we still had the detonation problem.

The bike was prepared for Sunday and the det problem was discovered to be the fuel having high oxygen content, other people were having the same problems. It was decided to mix the 2 fuels and see if that helped. We had also destroyed the Dunlop rear tyre and so returned to the Avon we normally use.

“The second race on Sunday was the 2^nd Barry Sheene and battle commenced again, Robert having fitted another new rear tyre. It was another close race and it went to the wire but again he finished ahead but in the meantime I had lapped, we think, 4 seconds under the lap record for a 750. The last race was the 4^th 750- unlimited race and this time Robert didn’t have a new tyre. As the laps went on I could see he didn’t have the grip advantage of the first 2 races and I took the lead several times. My rear tyre was starting to overheat so I knew I had to make a break. I got past at turn 2 and managed to hold him off till the start-finish. At turn 1 I knew I was faster, so this time I went as fast as I dared and got on the gas hard and early. The rear tyre started to spin mid-corner and kept sliding all the way to the exit which was heart stopping at that speed. I got the break I needed and held him off till the end.

The results for the weekend were: 1^st 750 Post Classic; 6^th overall and 1^st 750 in the fastest 40 Barry Sheene race.  Many thanks to SBR (Tony and Buck) for letting me ride this awesome bike, North Drill, Pero’s Barbers shop and the Aussie Post Classic Club for their help to get to the meeting.”