Parilla's at the Sandia Classic
Parillas Converge on Sandia Motor Speedway
January/February 2006
By Ric Anderson
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James Britton speeds toward a third-place finish in the 200GP at the 2005 Sandia Classic in Albuquerque, N.M.
Photo by Ric Anderson
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There were plenty of times when Craig Congleton was ready to put James Britton’s old Dog to sleep.
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In 2000, Britton’s Parilla 200GS began rattling during a practice lap at the Sandia Motor Speedway outside Albuquerque, N.M. After Britton nursed it back to the pits, he discovered that the crankshaft had spun loose and caused what looked like a bomb blast in the case.
“Definitely a disappointment,’’ Britton says. “I hadn’t even raced it yet.’’
Enter Congleton, a machinist who had built a Benelli race bike for himself and agreed to resurrect the GS. At first glance, Congleton was dazzled with the design of the engine, with its shapely side cover and unique high-cam layout. But behind the pretty face, he says, lurked a nightmare.
“It’s beautiful. They’re works of art,’’ Congleton says. “But they’re just horribly fragile. I find them to be under-engineered and designed from the outside in.’’
He then imagines the Parilla engine designer’s pitch to the Italian company’s ownership, pointing out that parts of the engine seem to resemble female anatomy — especially a camshaft cover that looks like one of Pamela Anderson’s more, um, prominent features. “I’m-a gonna draw a real pretty woman. It’s-a beautiful. We’re-a gonna sell the crap outta these. Now all we gotta do is-a figure out how to-a make it work.’’
Congleton spent five years unraveling the Parilla’s design, which features such quirks as a single cam lobe for both the exhaust and intake ports. A translated factory manual wasn’t much help, offering instructions like bending the connecting rod to make it fit in the cylinder.
These days, Congleton jokes that Parillas must have been designed by guys who couldn’t get a job with Benelli.
“The Parilla guys hate me,’’ he says, smiling.
Not Britton, though. Last September, on the same track where his Parilla suffered its mortal wound, it roared back to life with a third-place finish during American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association racing at the Third Annual Sandia Classic. “That was fun,’’ Britton says. “To come out and get third place in this bike’s first race, that was great.’’
Parilla Days
Britton wasn’t the only Parilla owner smiling at Sandia. Parilla Days, organized by collector Paul Johnson and coinciding with the AHRMA event, brought together an international group of owners and some of the rarest and most beautifully restored bikes from the company’s stable.
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