‘Parc
de Ritero’ – Madrid – Spain.
Leaving Badalona behind us
we set out for Madrid this time travelling in convoy with some other
riders and their mechanics. In the evening we arrived and camped down at
a pleasant camp site just a few miles south of Madrid where I
met up again with Ramon Robinson, Andy Rickman and
Barry Smith,
Parc de Ritero was quite
a small almost rectangular circuit surrounding a large lake & located very close to the centre
of Madrid. The most distinguishing feature of the circuit for me was
the long left hand sweeping bend at one end of the circuit
connecting the two main straights of the circuit together. As may be
seen from the accompanying photographs, the surface of this sweeping
bend was like polished marble! The main straight on which the
starting grid was located was quite wide. At the end of this
straight was a sharp left hand turn onto a narrow short straight
before turning sharp left onto the back straight of the circuit
which lead to the start of the long left hand curve taking the
riders back onto the main straight once again.
The races were held at a
time when General Franco was still in power but as evidence of the
political changes on the horizon, Prince Carlos, Spain’s future
King and Head of State, was the Government’s senior representative
and the FIM’s guest of honour at the meeting. His attendance
required the assembly of a very large Royal Box on the outside of
the circuit placed next to the starting grid at a point where any
riders sliding off their machines when exiting the long left hand
bend could finish up, that is, if they were not so unfortunate as to
slide right up under the Prince sitting in the Royal Box!
RM
during early morning practice – the scaffolding can be seen still
going up to protect The Royal Box!
The weather in Madrid for
practice, the races and camping out was just perfect and I think we
all enjoyed our last week in Spain. Practice went well for me and
for most of the Colonials but we were all treating the long left
hand bend with considerable caution. One or two of the Spanish
riders were not being so careful and as a result ended up, as
predicted, exploring the under side of the Royal box!
During the first practice
session I discovered, almost by mistake, that if I
peeled into the left hand bend very late, and took a line to come out of the
bend within 2 feet of the inside of the track, I gained a
considerable advantage. This was due to there being a storm gully at
this point on the roadside which was banked at about 15 degrees
towards the inside of the track. Hitting this point was like
starting the climb up the ramp of the wall of death, a manuever I had
performed on a number of occasions as a teenager at local fair
grounds in Guildford and Godalming! This tactic enabled me to keep
the power on through the bend and gain 20 or 30 yards over many of
the other riders at this part of the circuit.
In the presence of Prince
Carlos, we all assembled in the afternoon for the start of the 250
race. Along with Barry Smith on his Aermacchi, I was on the second
row of the starting grid with Spanish factory Works riders all
around us. I also noticed that Ramon Robinson was starting on the
3rd row of the grid right behind me on his MSDS Parilla.
250
race start at the Parque de Ritero – the first 3 rows of the grid
have already gone
With this being the last
race of the Spanish series and of the season for most of the Circus
riders present, there was quite a lot of tension before and at the
start of the race! With one of my best ever starts I was right up
behind Ramon Torras and two other Spanish riders as we reached the end of
the main straight and turned into the first tight left hand bend.
Hitting my identified storm
gully at the best possible point, I shot out of the first bend so
fast that I came very very close to hitting the rear wheel of the
rider ahead of me!
My immediate reaction was to back off for just a split second which
was a big mistake as this allowed Torras and the other leading
riders to get so far
ahead of me I could not gain the advantage of a tow from
them down the next straight. Once they got away, they were gone!
Ramon Robinson on his 250 Moto Parilla in hot pursuit of RM
Now coming under pressure
from following riders, I had to rely on utilizing my storm gully
tactic more and more as we changed places lap after lap. At
approximately half way through the race Barry came past me on his
Aermacchi. This turned out to be to my advantage as by gaining a
good tow down the straights behind Barry, he helped me to get past
and pull clear of the pack of riders with whom, up to then, I had
been constantly changing places. With the help of his tow I could
stay with Barry but my Parilla did not have the power to pull past
him. Once well clear of the following pack, I backed off a little
and settled for taking 7th place at the finish.The
race was won by Jose Maria Busquets (Montesa) followed home by Renzo
Pasolini (Aermacchi) and Pedro Millet (Montesa).I think Barry
finished in 5th or 6th place.
RM on the last lap of the 250 race finishing in 5th place just
ahead of Ramon Robinson
All in all the Parque de
Retiro meeting had been a success as far as I was concerned and we
all had quite a celebration at a local restaurant close to our camp
site that evening. During the banter which went on well into the
night, I overheard, with some amusement, Ramon Robinson giving his
account of the 250 race start which went something like this:-
"I was right behind
Morley at the start and determined to stay with him this time! I got a good
start and was right on his tail when we all braked for the first
left hand bend, but Morley did not seem to brake at all! – he just
dived straight into the bend and I thought he was a goner. Once
around the bend I looked about but could not see him anywhere, he
had just plain gone!"
Some riders were finding it difficult to accept that the racing season
had come to
an end here in Madrid and facing the prospect of returning home to
the cold Winters of Northern Europe. So the beer flowed and there
were many more tales told throughout the evening and well into the
following morning. For me the time had come to start packing up
& heading for home.
Before leaving Spain, and
with the help of a local hotel receptionist, I made contact by telephone with Parilla in
Milan, The call was to find out if the new 250 G.P racer was ready
for testing as we had discussed and planned back in June.
The news from Parilla was
very disappointing and in summary it came down to ‘project postponed
due to budgetary constraints.’ All very similar to the position at
Ducati Espania and yet another clear indication of the problems
european motorcycle manufactures were beginning to face as the
Japanese enjoyed ever increasing sales into traditional european
motorcycle markets. The very clear message I got at the end of the telephone
discussion with Parilla was "We will call you, don’t call
us"
The end of yet another
dream?
On my return to the UK, the
125 short stroke Parilla with the 5/6 speed gearbox and the 256
Racer together with the long stroke 125 engine, were all returned to
Capriolo/Parilla in Croydon. The MD, Cyril Ashford, very generously
gave me the 250 Parilla to keep.
The Bedford Dormobile, now
with 3500 more miles on the clock and in much better service
condition than when I had collected it, was returned to the Tooting
depot.
I then cleaned and put my leathers and all my other racing
gear away knowing this was, perhaps, for the very last time?
