Back in about 1987 at the since closed Oran Park, I was lined up for the start on my Manx and the clutch was grabbing and for some reason they kept us there for some time, since it was grabbing I could not select neutral resulting over heating and the clutch lever coming back to the bar stalling the engine, two older flag marshals told me to stay on and they would push start me, I thought this is bad because they just pushed with out pulling the bike onto compression, but bugger me it turned over and after about 10 feet it fired up, at what seemed like a fire every 5 five feet or so, until it started to motor on it's own took the full length of the straight before it started to get the revs up high enough to motor properly.
Did a couple of laps without use of the clutch, then I started to get some feel back on the lever as the clutch cooled down, then away I went, pretty lonely run all by myself though as the others had disappeared by then.
So Mike40M it must have been pretty close to that fine line, or a bit too much to the starting line, because the engine was turning over slower than what I could normally keep it running when just sitting there, it was geared for about 75mph in first gear.
Burgs