In
January 2014 while attending the
Historic Phillip Island Classic Races,
apart from watching Ivan Hoey race his
XS650, I also ran into Brian Filo a
fellow XS650 racer visiting again from
the USA. I told him we had pictures of
his bike on our website from the
previous years event and asked him if he
would like some club racer stickers to
put on his tool box. He said yes and
subsequently gave me one of his
stickers, which now resides on my tool
box, and I posted some off to his
address when I returned home.
Unfortunately my conversation with Brian was short but very interesting and we discussed why his bike was so fast, his lap times had improved by two seconds a lap over the previous year. Brian’s bike is of course built to American spec which allows more modification than we can have here in period 4 so he has the advantage in some areas. Today I received an email thanking me for the stickers he had received and the picture below. He says he’ll be back next year so hopefully Ivan or the club racer can give him a run for his money. He says his fellow American XS650 racers will be jealous of his tool box stickers. Terry Gliddon
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