I am sitting inches above freshly-laid tarmac in the Valko, waiting for the lights to turn green for what seems to be a century. By now, a lot of traffic has built up behind me. But inches away from my right ear is a Yamaha motor that sounds like it’s being denied free will. However, Joshua’s right wrist is hinting at something special. Just then the light changes and it’s a dash to the next signal.
Some seriously ferocious throttle action and quick gearshifts mean I have left most of the traffic behind, but the RX has positively annihilated me. And as I open my mouth to gasp, the anticipated intake of breath is pre-empted by a rush of fume-rich atmosphere. Suddenly, the basic process of breathing is rendered useless by the unearthly forces at work around the Valko Superlite 1300.
At BSM we’ve been on some pretty fast cars and bikes, but today the lack of a proper race track is more apparent than ever – never before have we got machines that are so alien to their surroundings. The similarity of course is that both these machines have been built by individuals not too different from you and me.
The Valko pays homage to the evergreen Lotus Seven, a car that for the past 50 years has been replicated and rebuilt end over end. For ages, people have been slotting various motors into that simple shape. All sorts of engines, from Cosworths to every Jap motor that measured 11 on the loud dial, seem to have made their way into various forms of this enlarged go-kart. What follows generally is the utter humiliation of Ferraris and Porsches on the track.
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