Laverda Club Victoria - The Early Years

Laverda Club Victoria - The Early Years.

When Laverda rode into the early 1980‘s the Laverda Club Victoria had already been staging rides, track days and race meetings for its members and other clubs for several years. These were the heydays of club racing in Victoria when genuine Laverda SFC750s along with several 1000/1200s were regularly seen on the tracks around Victoria and South Australia. John Nickles, Hillary Heenan and Phil Peacock regularly organised members ride days at Winton Raceway. For several years from 1980 Phil Peacock raced his Laverda Jota 1000 with success in Superbike races at some of the world renowned racetracks like Calder Park Raceway, Sandown Park and Winton. Laverda was a current model bike and competitive. Phil Peacock remembers, "These were the days when we got paid prize money for racing. When I look back, if I finished in the top 5 places the prize money actually covered the cost of entry and tyres" Phil recalls. "Sometimes I found myself lining up with names like Robbie Phillis, Kevin Magee and Andrew 'AJAY' Johnson on the Syndicate Kawasaki Superbike.". When the Syndicate was retired club member Greg Parish ACS obtained one of the sets of special grind cams for his Kawasaki Z1R based 1100cc superbike before moving to race Laverda. The Australian Superbike Series beginning in the 1970's became a crucible for some of the best riders in world championship motorcycle history. The story of how it created the world’s longest-running and most successful race category is told in the book Race Across The Great Divide.

Vena Lavery, an accomplished mechanical engineer and rider, campaigned a highly modified Laverda 500 Montjuic that often won races against larger capacity Japanese bikes for two years 1984-85. His very loud Monty was easily recognised by its bright orange paint and external oil hoses from the crankcases to supply the overhead cams. The bike subsequently changed owners several times and while in need of some loving care was on display for many years in the National Motor Museum in South Australia.

After switching from Kawasaki to race Laverda Greg Parish wrote to the racing committee to suggest running a BEARS series, asking that they specifically exclude the fuel injected 4 valve Ducati 851. The BEARS (Formula European Championship) Series went ahead, but the committee had declined his suggestion and the Ducati 851 was not excluded from the competition. The ensuing battle between the Laverda and Ducati for the title was colourful, filled with great battles for 2nd and 3rd places as the evolutionary Ducati 851 easily left the field far behind but failed to finish on several occasions. This lifted every contender one place with each DNF and the Laverda engine's reliability won another championship.