"Dogged Life of Brian" and The Spondon RD F1
Spondon RD500 F1
1985 was an exciting year for the motorcycle F1 world championship. One of the biggest races of the F1 season was always the Isle of Man TT road races, which didn’t fail in providing more drama than most would have wanted.
Joey Dunlop was set to continue his dominance now on the ultra exotic factory Honda RVF, Trevor Nation was continuing his development of the now outgunned Ducati air-cooled twin, Tony Rutter was aboard the all new Suzuki GSX-R750, and Brian Reid had his sights set on achieving an elusive Formula championship title.
Reid, an already successful road racer and champion, was looking to improve his overall results for the F2 and F1 championships heading into the 1985 season. He later secured the F2 championship, but his Formula 1 efforts proved to be a bit more difficult, plagued by the worst of luck throughout the year.
Reid found himself aboard a very special machine for the Formula 1 season. It was specifically built with the Isle of Man TT event in mind. A small British frame building firm, Spondon, built a special aluminum alloy frame around a Yamaha RD500 road bike engine.
Both Yamaha and Suzuki had released their 500 GP replica road bikes for that year. Exotic liquid cooled 500cc, two-stroke, 4-cylinder engines the likes of which the motorcycling public had never seen before. 500 grand prix machines made for mere mortals, like you and me, were the things of dreams. Both the Yamaha and the Suzuki were making only about 90hp, but in a relatively lightweight package, they were fast for the time. They were not producing horsepower figures anywhere near what the actual grand prix race bikes were producing, but with similar engine designs, many tuners saw potential for massive improvements.
Len Manchester Motorcycles was one of those tuners. Engine builders Arnie Fletcher and Robin Church pried all the power they could get out of the Yamaha V4 and ended up with a 150hp screamer. Once in the specially built lightweight Spondon aluminum frame, it appeared to be a winning package. With Brian Reid at the helm, they prepared to attack the Isle of Man TT head on. But, it seemed, the powers that be had different plans.
1985 became an infamous year for the Isle of Man TT. It was the year the Tornamona Lass, a large fishing boat, sank after hitting rocks while carting a full load of Grand Prix racing motorcycles over to the island. Joey Dunlop was aboard at the time and further cemented his hero status by keeping people from drowning in the frigid waters of the Atlantic. The motorcycles were recovered, and after clearing out the salt water and feverish repair efforts, many were ready to line up for the race at the last minute; one of those being Brian Reid’s Spondon RD F1 racer.
As the fortnight progressed as did the efforts of Reid and his team. Reid fought hard in all Formula classes but only managed to finish the 6-lap Senior event. The TT’s Snaeffel Mount Course is famous for its many high speed sections. On one of these sections, at wide open throttle, one of the carburetor assemblies blew right off of the Yamaha RD F1 motor, tuned to within an inch of its life. The bike was repaired again for the Senior TT final event. But Reid could not get as much out of his Yamaha V4 as previously expected; ending up 21st. “Dogged Life of Brian”, read the news headlines. They didn’t know how right they were.
As the season progressed so did the bad luck. Reid was known for being extremely fast around the Dondrod course at Northern Ireland’s Ulster Grand Prix. The Ulster is the perfect race for high horsepower machines, being the fastest road race in the world. Reid had showed great promise in practice as he passed larger displacement TZ750’s on the straights, proving that the wizards at Len Manchester had built a monster out of what was once a slightly exciting production road bike engine. But bad luck struck again. After clinching the F2 championship, on his Yamaha TZ, Reid was compelled to celebrate, of course. But he celebrated a little too hard, crashing his 350 and injuring himself in the process. It’s a difficult task, to the say the least, to win the Ulster GP F1 race, but impossible while laid up in a hospital bed with a broken leg.
The one and only Spondon RD F1 almost didn’t survive. It was found as a skeleton and a heap of parts, decades later, but rebuilt to its former glory now taking parade laps around the fabled TT road course. It’s attracted a lot of attention from die-hard enthusiasts and racers over the years, for its slightly odd history, and also for being a wonderful example of a comparatively docile street bike that anyone could buy off the showroom floor, turned into a fire breathing Formula 1 racer, ready to do battle with the mighty factory teams.
