Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/95613
Mik. H8IIwood returned to..of MlIII far film. Nom C8IIIIIIIln fIIrIng. Movie review Peter Starr's Take it to the Limit By Mark Kariya Photos courtesy of Peter Starr Productions Ever seen grass track? How about the Isle of Man TT? Better yet, have you ever n'dden the Isle of Man? No? Well you must have ridden the Indy mile or road raced at Riverside at least. 11m ecIIar John 8ry8nt. ...... Luc Ponty ends.rcIIsc:ua ~-procIuc 1Ian wark. (BeIowJ A.c. 8lIIdcen with helrllet-mounllld cell... C80tIDm IeftJ DebbIe ev....L.eevItt perform8 he.d.mlld. (Bottom rIghtJ CIIin11l1 h••captarch•••• D8vId ErndI. iTciPJ Kenny Robera being fitted with "Up mlk•."IAboveJ Left to right - Wrong again? No need to apologize. thou who an compet- itive of blood but broke of bank. for Peter Starr has come to you as a saving light in the dark with his latest ceUuloid creation, Tale it to thelimit. Starr's fJlm takes you into many facets of two-wheeled competition, and I do mean into. He makes exten- sive use of bike·mounted cameras which, along with Dolby stereo, give you the feel of speeding through the English countryside peering through a plexiglass bubble or hitting 150 on a one-mile din oval in the heart of America. "( reaDy believe that this film is as dOle to racing a motorcycle (you can get) without actually racing one," says Starr who should know, having been a factory Triumph road racer in the early '60s. "Everything (that is shown in the fJlm) happened; it is for real." Three yean in the making. Tale it to the limit is rich in behind·tbe-scene stories of humor, heart-pounding ex· citement and fun. Take the opening scene, for example. It was actually the last thing filmed and was done on California's Hipway ISO, appr0ximate- ly 50 miles nonhwest ofdowntown Los Angeles. An un·named rider (actuaDy road racer David Emde) is shown climbing aboard a Yamaha XS-ll and motor- ing off through a desmed mountain road. As each curve c:omes up to chal· lenge him. he thinks back to a race and the speed increases, 80. 90. 100 mil~ an hour. You!lick through many eases and short straights, look down at the speedo and are shocked to see the needle at ISO. Suddenly, however, tbe bubble bursts and the rider sees a couple crashes in his mind's eye. He backs off. Thespeed drops. 12 The California Highway Patrol hael blocked off several miles of tbe road for tbe fJ1ming but apparendy hadn't been fully briefed on what would take place. "The CHP had no idea of what we were going to do. It was a lot of funI" said Starr. "I'D never forget the cop's face when we went by him the first time doing about 80 to 90 miles an hour. Wewere reaDy haulingl" The CHP ofticen preamt. though. took a very dim view on such unex· pected shenanigans and for a while, continuation of the aeaaion was touch and go. After explanations were offered and things straightened out, however, Starr praised the CHP for their co- operation. "They were terrific. just superl" ODe incident that nearly turned trag- ic occ:urred atRi~Raceway. Starr had rented the facility to shoot footage of World Road Race Champion, Kenny Roberts. Skip Ak.sIand was helping out by ridin~ a camera bike. Abland was foDowlOg Roberts com- ing out oftum nine, a fast moderately· banked sweeper preceding the stan/finish straight. He suddmly 100t control and was pitched off the bike hard. (To this day. nobody knows ex- actly what happened. but it's assumed that AbIand just grabbed too much throtde.) When the bike hit the asphalt. the gas tank~C~:dburst into flames in- stantly. ended up at the edge of the track, uncoDSCious when a fire- man sprayed him with COt and effectively cut off his breathing. Roberts, unaware of what had hap- pened behind him, wondered why everybody was running toward the tum he had just exited so he looked back and saw AbIand on the ground. He did a quick U-tum and jetted toward Aksland, reaching him before those on foot could. Roberts puDed AksIand away from the flames and helped him stan to breathe again. Remaritably, Abland was out of the hOlIpital that night. He was bruised and his arm was in a sling, but otjler·