Thanks to a surprise from Lucio Cecchinello, Honda LCR team manager present at Vallelunga, Randy Mamola got to see an 'old' friend again, the RS500 he raced with in 1984 , a good 40 years ago. Lucio Cecchinello commented thus, "When Randy took the veil off the bike, I got goosebumps."
Undeniable was the emotion of those present and Randy Mamola himself, who commented:
"It's like anyone would imagine, people who loved the two-stroke era still believe in it. I've also tried the four-stroke and I believe in both. Let's not forget, though, that at that time Honda's three-cylinder was the pinnacle of technology. There was a lot of competition back then as well. So I understand that the bike is more than 40 years old, with all the moving parts attached to it, but to take it to the track and do that first lap was amazing. It was fun because even though it was hot and with the old radiator, we had to use tape to warm it up. The pictures you see are footage of Dakota following me on the RCV213S, it was a lot of fun, even he was surprised because I pushed it quite a bit in a couple of corners and he couldn't believe it was 500cc with the cornering we were able to do. of course at the time we were using 16-inchers, these have 17-inchers. They are Pirellis and they worked well, but I admit I didn't push it too hard to the limit. I told Dakota I was going to do a push start. Me, Haslam, we only needed two steps. Now that I'm 65 and older it took me three!"
We thank Randy and Dakota Mamola, along with Lucio Cecchinello and the Honda LCR team for the beautiful pictures we show you.
Automatic Translation by DeepL