SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
A SELF-EMPLOYED carpenter from the Yarra Valley east of Melbourne, Roland Skate has been stuck on sixes since 1982 when he bought his first Honda CBX, a well-used ex-drag racer. “I fell in love with it because it gave so much performance, and especially so much fun, in return for so little attention,” Roland says. “I began doing track days and eventually plucked up the courage to go racing in 1994. I gave it a bit of TLC and have been progressively modifying it ever since. People used to rubbish the CBX, saying it’d never be able to make a race bike. But I knew the bike could be successful if I got a good rider aboard it.”
Enter fellow Hartwell Motor Cycle Club member Michael Gibb in 2007, a gifted novice whom Roland thought had what it took to race the CBX against the big guns of Post Classic Period 5 racing, also known as Vintage Superbike.
Roland set about rebuilding the CBX as a dedicated Period 5 bike, after it had languished for five years in the shed with a holed crankcase from a major engine
