The improbable success of the Norton rotaries is one of modern racing’s greatest ‘fairy stories’; the tale of how an under-funded British David took on and beat the best of the Japanese and Italian Goliaths. Ex-racer Brian Crighton was working as a development engineer at Norton Motors when he conceived the idea of turning the rotary roadster into a world-beating race bike. Crighton’s prototype used a tuned example of the 588cc, air-cooled, twin-rotor engine, as fitted to the Classic and Interpol models, in a twin-spar aluminium beam frame built by Spondon Engineering. Suspension at the rear was rising rate with Ohlins monoshock, while Suzuki RG500 Kayaba forks propped up the front. The wheels were 17” Dymags. With a race-ready weight of 320lbs and an estimated 135bhp available (Norton’s dynamometer could only handle up to 100bhp) the RC588 seemed promising. In fact, its achievements would prove to be out of all proportion to the resources available. For 1988 the team recruited Simon Buckmaster and Trevor Nation as regular riders, but it was substitute Andy McGladdery who gave the RC588 its first win, at the ACU Star event at Carnaby. The rest, as they say, is history: between 1989 and 1994 the howling Norton rotaries featured at the forefront of British national racing, an unprecedented run of success in modern times that culminated in Ian Simpson’s victory in the ’94 TT Superbike Championship for Colin Seeley’s Duckhams-sponsored team.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:24:58 +0000
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