Destination: 2019 Burt Munro Classic

Along with a trip to the Holy Grail of motorcycle racing, the TT on the Isle of Bloke, the Burt Munro Challenge (BMC) is creeping up the "bucket list" for many Aussies. And so it should!

After the success of the movie The World’s Fastest Indian, The Southland Motorcycle club created the BMC in 2005 to honour Burt’s ingenuity, determination and love of fast motorcycles.

Shortened to “The Burt” in Unzud, this lucky little black duck got to see the 13th running of the event, only the second held in summer. Until 2016 the BMC was held in November and the weather was as fickle as a three-year-old. If we think Phillip Island, on the edge of Bass Straight is a dumb place to perch a race track, how about Invercargill, the southernmost city of the British Commonwealth? Next stop Antarctica!

Combining a tribute, rally and a multi-disciplinary race meeting over five days is working its way up the bucket list of bikers worldwide. The Kiwis have not let the “nanny state” impinge on life as much as us schmucks on the ‘West Island’. They are still allowed to make decisions about their own risk and safety. It’s hard to see such an event getting beyond the front bar in Australia.

Open to various classes of vintage, classic, post-classic and open classes, the sounds, sights and smells (aaaaahhh … The smell of Castrol R in the morning) surround the senses. Each day but Friday hosts two events, one in the morning and another in the evening (which seems to go on forever at these latitudes).

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Not only do most of the hard beds in the district fill but a small tent city pops up at the rally site near the Speedway track. Two large marquees provide space for bars, bands and dining halls. This year attracted around 2000 participants.

The 2019 event started with a new concept: a “come and try day” on the Wednesday afternoon. It was a chance for novices to get a feel of the Teratonga race track, in the process recruiting riders for both racing and the BMC in the future.

The event proper got underway on Thursday morning in bright sunshine with a light breeze. In 2018 the event moved to February from November and the “weather gods” played ball.

The 1.4km stretch of dauntingly steep and bumpy tarmac of the Bluff Hill Climb was conquered in 42.85 seconds by Kiwi Seth Devereux in the open 601cc plus class. The essence of The Burt is about having a go. That made Tony or Damon Rees (running in the 2019 Aussie superbike title) on a Carl Cox-sponsored Honda CBR1000RR superbike as intriguing as Byron Clothier on his 1946 Norton ES2.

The biggest issue was overweight bikers risking a stroke or hearty while puffing and blowing their way up the hill for an intimate view of the races. Views… OMG, check out the photos, the colours of the ocean, sky and racing is something that will live long in the memory.

Mention must be made here of the Kiwi approach to public liability insurance, their no-fault government-mandated system stops people being sued for others having fun. Without this system (which is held up as a beacon for freedom and individuality worldwide), The Burt would not happen.

Volunteer marshals restricted spectator access in only the most dangerous of places.
Quicker than it appeared, the circus is packed and redeployed 15km away at the Teratonga track for drag racing.

Many of the same bikes and competitors rewarmed their machines and shot them off the Christmas-tree lights in the quarter mile challenge. Demonstration runs by all-out drag cars and bikes added to the atmosphere. Chookies, classics, Harleys and superbikes all got out and had a bash.

In the spirit of having a go even though the trailbikes couldn’t produce competitive times they entertained with flash wheelies.

On Friday another perfect morning saw the parade move to Oreti Beach, the scene of Burt Munro’s most famous beginnings. The majority of bikes park on the sand, the atmosphere and excitement build as you stream onto the beach. Us “new chums” suddenly realised we were totally unprepared to park a 230kg bike on a beach.

Timed to coincide with low tide, the one-mile circuit consists of two half-mile sprints with a tight turn at either end. The competition classes carry through from event to event so the same protagonists lined against each other at the start line on the sand.

Aussie Damien Koppe impressed with spectacular aggressiveness and lurid drifting to set the fastest lap but his bike couldn’t cope with the punishment forcing a DNF in the 50-mile Burt Munro Trophy. The honours were taken by Invercargill’s Greg Baynes (311).

Demo runs by Lee Munro on the Spirit of Munro as well as the Ducati Pantah-engined bike used in the movie with the sea and mountains behind topped off the experience.

The full Teratonga circuit was put to work hosting the sprint races on Saturday morning. It was almost a little “ho-hum” after the previous two days. The 2.7km b-shaped track provides excellent viewing, and the punters get a chance to roam the pits and cross from outfield to infield during arranged track closures. The pride of Kiwi engineering, two Brittens hooned around at half race pace on demo laps. The crowd was beside itself.

The southern sun beat down on the crowd as it moved a few kays closer to town for the speedway event. Despite temperatures of over 30 degrees at 7:00pm the large crowd was treated to spirited racing and demonstration rides. The event also included “slidecars” and juniors, proving this is obviously a popular sport in NZ.

Sunday started cloudy, humid and windy for the street race. An industrial area had been transformed with bales, security fence and plastic road barriers (with no water in ’em) into a race track. It was a narrow, tight and daunting track. Spectators leant over the barriers almost patting the riders on the back as they flew past. Punting a superbike around that track is not for the faint-hearted.

Any incident meant that the races were red flagged and re-started when the track was cleared. More demo laps by the Brittens mono-ing up the straights made the day.

Although the individual events have class winners the most important prize is the Competitor of the Year trophy. This is not for the fastest or best but the rider who most embodies the spirit of Burt and the event. Chosen by Munro family representative John, Burt’s son, they look for:

1. Does the competitor compete in Burt’s speciality events?
2. Does the competitor maintain their own machines?
3. Does the competitor make their own parts?
4. Is the competitor determined to give everything they have to win?

This year’s winner was Norton-mounted Butch Woods. Butch was humbled to be presented with the Munro Family Trophy.

Words and pictures can’t capture the spectacle and excitement but the image of a marshall, standing on a haybale with a “durrie” waving a yellow flag seems to reflect so much of the spirit of The Burt.

It’s about having a bash, run what ya brung and relax. It’ll be sweet as eh!

Born in 1899 to Scottish farmers, Burt Munro was lucky to survive his second year as were a large portion of kids of that era. While still in primary school he was recognised as a potterer, and at eight was nicknamed “the inventor”. Young Burt was already making working steam engines and models. Motorbikes crossed his path about the same time.

This was an era of newfangled contraptions and cars, planes and motorbikes fascinated him. It was also a time of modest means. Money was tight and a “have a go” approach developed in isolated countries like New Zealand and Australia. Burt’s homemade models morphed into full-sized, homemade prototypes, many of them knocking young Burt unconscious. In fact, he spent a significant amount of his life KO’d.

His first Indian took pride of place in the hay shed in 1920, hitting Oreti Beach in ’21, winning his first race by pure luck. By the mid-1920s Burt and family had moved to the “West Island”, living, working and racing in Oz. In 1928, the newcomer on a most unlikely bike, beat all comers to snatch the Victorian Hillclimb Championship on his home-modified 1924 Scout.

As the Great Depression bit, NZ offered better prospects to the family than Australia. The family and Indian set off home where Burt pulled his dream job selling bikes.

By the mid 1930s the Oreti beach races were drawing over 10,000 spectators watching a couple of dozen riders battle out a scratch race on the inter-tidal sand. Each year the Scout got a little faster thanks to hand-forged conrods from old axles and pistons cast in jam tins. One modification causing a failure somewhere else resulted in endless rebuilds and back road “tests”. By 1940 his first hand-beaten streamline body took shape, only to be stripped off for hill climb events.

The end of World War II and a divorce saw Burt dedicate himself to a simple life and an old Indian Scout. He crafted most of the engine components himself from "the mother of invention". Not only was he good at racing the Indian and Velocette, he was a master at blowing them up -- a stunning 62 times for the Velo. It was nothing for him to ride a hundred miles an hour in light slacks and short sleeved shirt ... or to wake up in shredded clothing and covered in gravel rash. He was not normal! Seriously, Munro seemed to have a massive blind spot for danger.

Naturally, real life and the movies diverge. Burt fell in love with the US and had a series of adventures in old cars while traveling extensively, regularly sleeping in them and fettling them beside the road. He frequently blundered, bluffed and charmed himself into places “Joe Public” rarely sees. Burt just seemed to go for it and rely on his uncanny luck. The people around him went to extraordinary lengths to help him achieve extraordinary things.

And, contrary to the movie portrayal, Burt had cultivated contacts in and around Bonneville a few years before he decided to have lash at the salt himself. The Indian and rider challenged “The Salt” most years from the early 1960s to 1971. He had two frames, one kept in NZ, the other in the US. He’d pack up the motor each year, take it home and fettle it. He was making parts from scavenged heavy machinery parts often in the shed he lived in, learning metallurgy and machining skills as he went.

Looking into his history had me wondering if these days that pottering kid might have been place “on the spectrum”. His single minded and unveering pursuit of speed had me thinking.

Burt finally failed to cheat death in 1978. Fifty years after the record setting runs, Burt's 1967 184.087mph still stands for an 1000cc fuel streamliner. That bike was 45 years old then!

The city of Invercargill has taken their relationship with Burt to icon status. His presence is felt through the town from posters in the main street to memorabilia in a hardware store and a statue in the city’s park. E Hayes & Sons Hardware store is something to see.

Imagine mixing a hardware/department store with a motorcycle museum. It’s literally that! A Hesketh is displayed next to the whipper snippers and Burt’s Indian and Velo are in a glass case near the main counter.