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It is cool when you met someone of such fame and they actually turn out to be nice. So often they aren't. Another famous person I met, at least famous in certain circles, was John Britten. What an amazing guy he was. And a good guy to boot. Incredibly nice.

Graham Hill was the nicest one I met..I worked with several when I was with "International Management and ""Wide World of Sports" back in the 60's and early 70's ..Jackie Stewart, Peter Revson..,etc. but I liked Graham Hill

Makes sense. I have met some top level racers who were nice, and others that weren't. Some were capable of being nice to fans, but at the same time were also not nice when just being themselves. Whenever approached by fans my race team and I always tried to go out of our way to be nice and approachable. Even though we were not a factory team or anything, we still understood that racing is an entertainment sport, and as such we wanted to do our best to make the experience of going to see a race a fun experience. Our team was run by a man who really understood that. I have not met many musicians, but my sister and her husband have. Based on talking to them I suspect another factor in the equation is how long they have been doing it. Musicians that have been around a longer time seem to be better at dealing with their fans. And I suspect some are genuinely nice people to begin with.

Over the years I have encountered a number of more or less famous musical artists. The trend is, the better and more experienced they are at what they do, the more likely there are to be relaxed and friendly. The difficult ones are those who are not as good as they would like to be (and know it deep down inside...).

Yes. Although the engine apparently had little in common with the stock engine as fitted in Oldsmobiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT19#Engine_and_transmission

Black Jack ran his own F1 team, won the title with an Oldsmobile engine and was the first guy to race the Indy 500 in a "rear engine" car. He later sold the team to Bernie. I remember it all as a kid. There were lots of great drivers. Jack was one of the first to run his own team and build his own race cars and sell them to other teams.

Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, and my best, John Surtees. Briefly meeting him was a highlight of my life.

The Cowpunchers? Japanese guys keeping it real! Yes!

I see your Jack Brabham and raise you a Stirling Moss

I suppose for me it's simply adoration. Even my 'junk' bikes have had a place inside. No way could I leave a prized bike in the elements, even covered. I've built an addition to my shop/garage that's large enough for 4 and is well insulated and no exterior openings. I use an oil radiant heater in that space in winter which is very economical and keeps the temp from going below 45f. This prevents the destructive condensation that Indiana weather and humidity tend to inflict on metal surfaces. I have in the past brought a motorcycle into the house for winter. Parked in the dining room. A heated garage or outbuilding is as necessary to my life as a living space in a home. My profession required it, and all my tinkerings and hobbies revolve around having a shop of some kind. So there will always be a place indoors for toys.

Hi Eamonn Your query re MRM hi-comp pistons. Yes. Absolutely. I will answer from memory here… you can always check by going over old posts yourself I seem to recall years ago when I ordered my pistons there were a couple of weight versions - one being comparable to oem stock weight in replacement & the other being further lightened. The piston profile of the two were the same tho. The V11 combustion chamber differed from previous Guzzi big blocks by having a angled squish band designed into it. I won’t try & relay here the details of the benefits this gives but at the time I researched it extensively because I enjoy understanding the nitty gritty (my ocd kicks in) - but essentially it improves air/fuel mixture turbulence & homogenisation than flat squish band at the higher RPM’s which Guzzi was trying to improve upon for the V11 design. Remember also it was changing to fuel injection from carburettor too on the V11 models. This was all happening at the time of Aprilia taking ownership as well. I digress. However - there seems to have been either a cost cutting exercise going on or an ordering oversight boo-boo stuff up of sorts & the pistons design wasn’t changed to properly match with the angled squish band heads. So while the heads squish band surface was angled the piston squish band was flat resulting in an ineffective non-working squish action. This mismatch is the root of the V11 tendency to detonate under certain conditions . I digress again. Anyhow Mike Rich spotted the design nuances of the V11 head chamber squish angle & designed his pistons with the same matching angled squish to work properly with the V11 heads which the Guzzi factory had ultimately failed to ever rectify. Improved piston chamber turbulence dampens detonation occurring & allowed a slightly higher compression ratio to be achieved as well with Mike’s hi-comp design. Whew! Sorry that the basic backstory from memory took so long Eamonn. Anyhooo… at the time I think a member called helicopterJim had previously installed MRM pistons & his positive commentary on his experience probably influenced my own decision to go ahead with Mike’s pistons. I chose the standard weight MRM pistons as I didn’t want to be bothered with any extra hassle of balancing work costs. I noted Pete Roper rating Guzzi conrods as very strong, very good & so had no desire to additionally fork out for Carillo’s in that case. The piston’s had a noticeably positive impact on installation. A slightly sharper bark with a more ‘awake’ feel & pulls harder thru midrange & sustains it longer imo. The occasional detonation rattle reduced to almost never - maybe once in a year of riding I’d notice a little rattle rattle for a second or so… that’s it even in hot 100F days. And that was before a better Bosch O2 sensor which improved the ECU control. My bike has the 15RC ECU so it continually trims the fuel when changes are made so it has capacity to recalibrate itself to it’s desired Lambda ratio in time. I seem to recall American V11 owners who installed Mike’s pistons without retuning their ECU’s & their bike’s coped fine with improvement but maybe others can confirm this recollection. In short - go ahead & install the pistons. They are an improvement. Oh, I just remembered - they are forged & a little clickety clackety mechanically louder for a couple of minutes until the combustion heat expands them just ever so slightly & that mechanical clatter completely disappears. Hope that helps

I thought I would add one such Luciano Marabese design. My Coppa with a Lemans fairing. Happy Holidays to ALL.