PEOPLEPART TWO
Last issue, I explained about a very special person, Barry Owen. Barry was a marshal (and they are special enough) but Barry picked me up out of the gravel more than once, and as I said, he was always up for a chat at the end of the day whether I’d been racing or coaching.
When Barry died, his son Rick was clearing his dad’s garage out, selling some of his machines; one of them was Barry’s road-going CB500. Now, I’m aware that converting a CB500 road bike to a racer has been done many times before, but for me it’s all about the personal sentiment of the Barry the Bike project; so I bought his bike with a plan to rebuild and race it in homage to Barry, my good friend. And hopefully not be pulled out of the gravel with it!
Barry’s Honda CB500 was the S model which sported a half fairing and having 34,000 miles on the clock was showing signs of wear and tear. This obviously didn’t bother me too much as the plan was to give Barry a right good refresh from the ground up. It was important to me though to keep the spirit of Barry alive, keeping him in a recognisable form of the original machine, but
