Leadfoot Festival

[Tommo]

Recently Rod Millen staged an event called the Leadfoot Festival on his place at Hahei on the Coromandel Peninsula here in N.Z.
It was an invite only deal and a real honour to be invited with the intent being to try and stage a Goodwood Festival of Speed style of event here in N.Z.
Did he succeed? You bet he did. Rod and Shelly, his wife, put on an event like no other ever seen downunder and Jennifer and I were priviledged enough to be invited.
I took my 1920 fixed engine TT Triumph, 1922 Ace 4 and a Ducati mini-bike and was joined by about 20 other motorcyclists.
There were about 80 cars there ranging from a 1904 Darracq to a 2004 Le Mans winnig Porsche and a lot of stuff in between.
Ron Hope bought his "Rat Trap" altered over from the USA and had a less than memorable event but he reckons he'll be back.
Google Leadfoot festival and you should be able to find plenty of reports on the event.
I've attached 5 photos
The first one is a couple of bearded fellows, the next one proves that I can be persuaded out of jeans and a tee shirt.
We were asked to dress in the period of our vehicle so the next 2 show muggins dressed in period clothes riding my 1920 TT Triumph and the last one shows me clowning around on my water cooled 70cc Ducati pit bike.
I'll put some other shots up on the next post as this is all this one will accept

[Tommo]

Here's some more.
The first one shows Kevin and his wife Innes with Kevin sitting on his CS1 Norton.
Kevin also had his Britten there and Steve Briggs rode it.
When Steve came to a stop in front of Rod's barn he left a perfect circle of rubber on the concrete there.
The sound and the smoke of the Britten doing that donut was something else and Rod was trying to keep everybody off it so it could be sealed in the concrete forever.
The ovation Steve got afterwards was almost as loud as the Britten.
The red bike is a works 500 Linto and I think only about 10 of them were ever produced so it is a very rare bike.
There's a Vincent Comet in that line-up but Nortons predominate.
Discovery Channel were there filming and thats them in the fourth shot.
The last shot shows our bikes in Rod's barn where they were stored each night during the event.

[c.o.]

Awesome post Tommo!!! I'm going to have to "Google" this event after work today! Oh, and those bearded fellas are familiar.... I'm just trying to figure out which one is the guitar picker.......

[gww]

pretty great. thank you for sharing. what are the castings being used as washers on the inside of the barn door?

[Tommo]

gww
To tell you the truth I didn't really look as there was too much, more important, other stuff going on.
Some of us did discuss the barn as it didn't look like a NZ design and may have been bought to NZ by Rod and Shelly as a kitset from USA. Pure speculation by us.
I did magnify one of my photos and they have "1/2 No30 15&10 Mail" cast on them and have a slotted centre locating hole. Any ideas?

[Tommo]

Cory
I'm not good at this but try the following

http://www.rpmphotography.co.nz/inde...-Festival-2012

[t-jacobs]

That bearded guy on the left is Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top if I'm not mistaken.

[fillibuster]

That bearded guy on the left is Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top if I'm not mistaken.

how-how, how-how!

[c.o.]

Cory
I'm not good at this but try the following

http://www.rpmphotography.co.nz/inde...-Festival-2012

Wow! That's quite a wide variety of vehicles! To have an event such as that in a driveway is something else!

Here's a little video I found folks.... If you're paying attention you will see that Tommo fella on his Triumph and there is a brief shot of the aforementioned Ace.

[c.o.]

how-how, how-how!

hmm, hmm, hmm.
Ah, have mercy.

[c.o.]

Tommo,

I've been meaning to comment on that little Italian mini bike of yours. I've always wondered how a full grown adult could maneuver one of those things. I guess I now know it's possible!!! It looks like you get a kick out of it!

[fillibuster]

Wow! That's quite a wide variety of vehicles! To have an event such as that in a driveway is something else!

Here's a little video I found folks.... If you're paying attention you will see that Tommo fella on his Triumph and there is a brief shot of the aforementioned Ace.

thanks! tommo and cory, .... over my first cup of coffee! It's going to be a good day!

[Tommo]

Cory
I'm 6'2" and 18 stone (115 kilos) so am not really the right person to ride the mini-bike but as you can imagine when you suggest to someone that they ride it you get the old "If you ride it I'll give it a go" reply.
Muggins proves it can be done and everyone else heads for the hills.
Its not difficult as your feet act like training wheels but to corner you must remember to get the appropiate one up out of the way.
That particular bike is good for close on 70kph so come on over and you can try it out. It's a real hoot to ride.

[c.o.]

Peter,

I had noticed that you weren't a small fry and thought you still made it look easy. Good tip about the foot being up at the appropriate time! I'd like nothing more than a trip to New Zealand but alas I'll be keeping close to home for awhile. I keep telling an Uncle of mine that I'll get over to OZ one of these years for a visit. After seeing the great photos of your country I would think a detour will be in the plans!

[Harley Hummer]

The bearded fellow looks like he's bad, he's nationwide.