XR1200 Cup Grand Finale

Just outside of Bowmanville, Ontario, lies Mosport International Raceway, which recently ran the final rounds of the 2011 Canadian Harley-Davidson XR1200 Cup Series.

Points leader Steve Crevier, sponsored by MotoSport Plus, took to the track with a 61-point lead on Cochrane, Alberta, rider Cody Matechuk, riding for Privateers Harley-Davidson of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Darren James riding for Ruthless Racing Inc. sat in third overall.

James took to Mosport’s 3.957 km circuit and captured the day’s best qualifying session with a lap time of 1:32.526, earning his second pole position in a row. John Ross McRae had the second-fastest time, only 0.098 of a second behind James, earning the Ruthless Racing Inc. rookie his first front row start in Saturday’s race. The Friday quickest qualifying run didn’t come without consequences, with James’ XR1200 transmission packing it in and leaving the Ruthless Racing Inc. mechanics a major overnight repair. The all-night repair was finished just a few hours before the second to the last race of the cup series.

When the checkered flag came down at the end of the 14-lap final, it was Michael Barnes, with J.R. McRae finishing second, his first podium finish of the season. Darren James held on to third position while Steve Crevier chased the leaders to the flag in fourth place, earning him the inaugural #1 plate for the Canadian H-D XR1200 Cup Series Championship.

With Crevier taking the championship, the Sunday race was supposed to be lackluster and instead turned out to be anything but. Just as in the previous day, four riders took an early lead holding nothing back. Barnes and Crevier were setting 1:31 lap times with only 0.2 of a second separating them. Crevier, sporting his new #1 plate, went all-out to win this race. On the final lap it appeared that Barnes had it in the bag, but in the last turn Crevier made a daring pass up the inside of Barnes to win the race at the finish line.

Racers honored

The Canadian International Motorcycle Heritage Museum Foundation is to honor speedway racers Eric Chitty and Harold Cole as historical inductees at the sixth annual Canadian Motorcycle Hall of Fame Induction Banquet and Reunion in Mississauga, Ontario, in early November.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1909, Eric Chitty began riding motorcycles at the age of 15 when he borrowed a belt-driven Enfield from a friend. Riding Indian, AJS and Rudge motorcycles, Chitty raced in hill climbs, trials and dirt track races across Canada and the U.S.

With numerous racetrack awards Chitty hooked up with Johnnie S. Hoskins, who is today considered the man to have invented the motorcycle speedway in the United Kingdom. With Hoskins’ help, Chitty moved to England in 1935 and joined the West Ham Hammers speedway team.

During his career in Britain, Eric Chitty won the Belle Vue Grand Prix, the Northern Championship, the Hundred Guineas Trophy and the All-English Best Pairs Championship in 1941 and 1943. In 1944 he won the National Trophy and the British Empire Best Pairs. Chitty retired in 1952 and returned to Toronto in 1985 where he continued to ride his motorcycle to work until his death in 1990.

Born in Toronto in 1895, Harold Cole became the owner of his first motorcycle, a 4 hp Yale in 1910, at age 15. After his first spin around the old exhibition oval that same day, Cole was hooked and racing became a life priority.

Cole attempted to enter competitions at the quarter-mile track at Scarborough Beach and Exhibition Place during 1910 but was told by the Toronto Motorcycle Club he was too young. The next summer Cole finally had the opportunity to compete in a three-mile race on the Waterloo quarter-mile dirt track on July 1, 1911. He won his heat and the final. That same week, Cole won his first event on his home track and set a new record for Eastern Canada, twice in one day.

Cole went on to a distinguished career as a motorcycle racer, setting records for distance in both dirt track and motordrome races. He was Dominion Champion and took home the Commeford Cup three times before his death in Toronto in the mid 1950s.