Offered from The Forshaw Speedway Collection, c.1986 Scorpio GM Speedway Racing Motorcycle

Frame no. 106 Engine no. 87232 SL THR

• Formerly the property of Mike Yeates
• Ridden by him during his captaincy of the Poole Pirates team
• Believed to be the last machine he used before retirement in 1987
• Powered by a 1986 GM LT engine

Speedway has always attracted innovative frame builders and through the long history there is a record of at least one hundred and seventy frame makers not including all the one-offs. This Scorpio was owned by Martin Yeates, captain of Poole Pirates speedway in 1987. Yeates had ridden for the Weymouth and Oxford teams winning the Northern League Pairs Championship in 1982 and 1983. In 1984 he was the first National League rider to reach the Overseas Final round of the Speedway World Championship. Retiring at the end of the 1987 season he later became manager and co-promoter of the Swindon Robins. This Scorpio GM is believed to have been Martin Yeates machine and ridden by him during his captaincy of the Poole Pirates team and the last machine he used before retirement in 1987.

The engine appears to be a GM LT from 1986 - a development introduced that year, the engine now with an internal oil pump now capable of 10,000 rpm. Since 1983 when Egon Muller was the first to win a World Final with a GM this Italian engine has won more than forty World Finals and Long Track Championships.

Giuseppie Marzotto was an established speedway rider winning Italian championships on five occasions. He rode in Germany, Argentina and New Zealand and in 1976 he was riding with Wolverhampton in the British League.

He had always ridden under the name of Charlie Brown from the days when he tried to hide his racing activities from his parents. In the late 1970s he started to develop his own engine and by May 1979 prototypes were under test. The GM engine impressed the famed engine builder and tuner, Otto Lantenhamme who became the first distributor. In May 1983 Ottovino Righettom was due to be the first to use a GM in British speedway at Eastbourne but it was certainly in 1983 that Trevor Hedge, former World Finalist, persuaded Dave Jessup to ride it.

Slowly the engine began to gain interest. The defining moment was when later in 1983 Egon Muller won the World Final and the following year in 1984 Eric Gundersen won both the Speedway World Final and the World Long Track Championship. Despite this it was some while before world domination because the early engines although powerful were subject to blow up. It was really the 'laydown' era that bought GM to dominance, Marzotto being enthralled by the concept. There is no record of when this Scorpio joined the collection, but it is certainly a very well presented speedway machine. The mechanical condition is not known and therefore we recommend re-commissioning and/or restoration to a greater or lesser extent.
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