Alain Chevallier left us yesterday at the age of 68. An essential character in the Continental Circus paddock of the 70s and 80s, his skill as a technician was matched only by his perpetual good humor and a humor that he knew how to preserve until the end, including through his extraordinary stories lying on the Pit-Lane.Biz forum. Our cover photo is quite eloquent; we read in this look all the benevolence, intelligence and modesty of the world...
Arrived in the world of motorcycle racing to help his brother Olivier, he had never left him, even when the latter had lost his life. A genius innovator to whom we owe carbon brakes and data acquisition, the man nicknamed “Chevall”, even “Lahoud”, had become a manufacturer and had acquired the trust of the Honda and then Yamaha factories before to turn, among other things, to the Voxan adventure.
De Bernard Ansiau to Didier de Radigues, There are a lot of people who are sad today. Having had the pleasure of knowing him in recent years, we are part of it and send our most sincere condolences to his family and his daughter Jasmine.
For those who didn't know him, here is just a small extract of his prose about a simple photo...
Alain Chevallier: “A photo that was given to me at the ML cuts, which I love and which speaks to me a lot. In a way, this is what she tells me.
Opatija paddock 1976, in less than an hour Olivier will finish this GP 250 fourth, telling me “I screwed up, but in 350 I’m sure I’ll be able to make some of them cry”.
Three days earlier, we had arrived a little late, the engines had not been started, the gearboxes that I had planned were not ready.
This road circuit takes a low road which runs along the sea and another, high one, which returns via the hill. At each end a very tight hairpin, the first to arrange everything materializes the attack of the climb, the second approximately as tight is a little less demanding because it marks the start of the descent. The upper part is quite fast, so the gear ratio is long, the TZ gearboxes have a very long first gear, the engines are very sharp. It is impossible to exit these two hairpins correctly without severely slipping the clutch, which does not seem to pose too many problems for the drivers, but which does not at all please the set of discs which easily fall apart. The game is to save them while wasting as little time as possible. Anyone who has exaggerated a little knows, when he takes a bite in the elbow, that he will have to return to the boxes at the end of the round.
To finish the scene, it's a real road circuit, for hairy paws, no escape routes, houses, rocks, trees... A descent towards the finish a little cut into the rock, a succession of turns more or less less tight with two choices if you fall: in the zig it's the rock, in the zag it's the float, provided you have the chance to pass through a hole in the skylight balustrade.
The modifications tried the previous year were not very conclusive, so for 76 I chose to shorten the first two gears. I thought I would find gears in the Japanese range, but the first one is cut on the primary shaft, and the shaft of a TZ is very long for the dry clutch. By digging around, I still found almost what I wanted, I lengthened the shaft by welding a piece of one of TZ. I remember the staging which was not the best, with a hole between the two and the three, but I especially remember the difficulty I had in adjusting the clutches which, coming from different boxes, did not fit. were neither opposite nor of the same number. Morality, when I arrived on the circuit, I was not ready. (Which was nothing new).
So I spent two days, locked in the truck, finishing this thing. The paddock of this crazy circuit was in a campsite on the edge of the page, everyone was going, after the tests, to take a dip in clear water, although covered with a small layer of gas oil, coming from the large port nearby. from Rijeka. The place was magical, is that why the drivers endured driving for so long on such a stupid circuit? . Still, I can still hear Patrick Pons banging on the truck. come and swim instead of going to the dentist” and I, sweating, answered “ you're not going to have as much fun on Sunday, banana".
That's it, the 350 race has started, after a few laps, Ago on the MV is in the lead, already a little detached, so that we can enjoy the unforgettable sound of this engine. Olivier quickly places himself well in the following package. Patrick Fernandez quickly gave up due to a breakdown and came to join us in the pits. Olive stands out a little from the group, I have the impression that I'm going to feel bad, Patrick encourages and suddenly “did you hear?” She has failures in the MV ».
The next lap, it's clear, she really has failures, then so many failures, that she won't go up the hill again, and that's hell, I'm not prepared to experience this anguish. It's not possible, we're definitely going to take something in the face! Patrick and Joseph reassure me, my legs are like wool. Olive royal, crosses the finish line in the lead and freewheeling for 200m….running out of fuel! Who said Jesus didn't exist?
There remains the podium, our eyes meeting, the Marseillaise, the emotion... You think that by fiddling with the 25 CD 4S you inherit its solidity, well damn!
The gearbox held, with the hole between two and three, I don't know if it was a real advantage, plus with the first one being quite short the bike reared up a lot. On the other hand, on arrival the clutch was like new, I don't think anyone could show me one this beautiful!!
I concluded, can do better!!, and this is what pushed me to create a little later, I believe the first gearboxes, with staging choices for TZ engines. »