Chris Walker swapped his PSG-1Kawasaski for Mick Grant's TT winning machine to take a run up the Goodwood hill.
We arrived just in time for the ball and although I've been to Goodwood before a couple of years ago with Petronas and Foggy, I didn't get to ride on the hill. It was really special to finally get to ride up the track and also to get to ride Mick Grant's 75 winning TT bike is pretty special, said Walker.
It is a pretty special motorcycle as Walker explains, It is the bike Mick Grant got the record at the TT in 75 on, and I mean for me it being a Kawasaki it is special. It is a parallel three cylinder, water cooled Kawasaki from that era and they were the thing to be on for a while. Mick had a fantastic year on it and won the TT, and it is sat there looking beautiful as ever. It is a big honour to ride it.
The amount of development that motorcycles have seen in the past twenty years is at its most obvious at the Festival as all manner of vintage bikes are on display. It is amazing the bikes have come on in leaps and bounds, beamed Walker, I was talking to
Casey Stoner earlier on and we were saying in five or ten years time you'll look at the bikes we are on now, when we think they can't get any better and you'll look at them in five years time and they will look dated. It is a frightening thought what they are going to get like in the future but I'll look forward to it with bated breath to see what comes out.
Walker has a passion for anything two wheeled and has ridden some classics in the past, as he tells us, I'm pretty lucky, Chris Wilson who owns the Mick Grant Kawasaki that I rode today, also owns three or four of the other bikes that I've ridden in the past. I've rode the Barry Sheene Suzuki, and the Honda at Cadwell Park a few years ago, so there are only a couple of bikes that I haven't been on. The MV Agusta the Phil Reid bike is the most special bike here and I'd love a go on one of those one day.
