THEY SAY you gotta be in it to win it and that’s exactly how one of Peter Howes’ immaculate and pristine Honda RC30s came into his hands.
Often raced by Australian racing legend, Malcolm “Wally” Campbell and his son Scott, Peter actually won the bike in a raffl e.
“I bought a raffle ticket for $20 — number 45! — in about 1991 or 92 and won Ed Miller’s race bike,” Peter explains.
“Steve Tozer raced the bike as well, so it was a well-set-up machine. It has a Paul Hallam-built motor with modified heads and the porting and cam timing has been changed. It’s brilliant out of the box.”
Back in the day both Miller and Tozer were handy racers. Tozer is a legend in Victorian racing. He was a leading privateer in Australian Superbike racing for a couple of decades, won a number of Victorian state championships and is still competing, and not too far off the pointy end of the field at the wrong side of 60.
Peter’s love for the RC30 escalated after his fortunate win. You could say the love affair with the venerated RC30 commenced in earnest and as such a few years later he purchased another!
“I always loved the RC30 and I was a big fan of Wally [Campbell] racing and of course when Troy Corser won the 1993 ASBK championship on what was a relatively old bike it cemented my love for them.
“… THEY WERE $15,000 ON DEBUT IN 1987, DOUBLE THE LIST PRICE OF THE VFR750F”
“I found another one where Rex Wolfenden and the bunch had K&W Motorcycles in Bell St. It was an ex-Winfield Honda bike which had the NLOB (factory) motor and the factory crank. I bought that for $10,000 in 1994; it’s the #29 C&C
