Hurray!
There is some racing on the doorstep at last.
There is a North Gloucester Club meet on Saturday 7th October.
Coincidentall, this is one of the clubs I was a member of in my all
to brief splee of racing.

In 1958, as a callow youth (no sniggering, I was once!) I was taken
by me dad with some mates to the Thruxton 500 miler.
This was a landmark event and my first race meeting!
We travelled by car from Cranford (near Heathrow) and it seemed
to take forever (no A3o3 as it is now, no M3 and not even a Staines
bypass!
Dring the 60s, I went to Thruxton with mates who raced and it still was
quite a trek.
Little did I know that from 1989 to 2003, I would travel from Staines
to Andover (close to Thruxton) on a daily basis as my company (Britax) moved there (here)
In 2003, we upped sticks and moved to Andover to live.
Great! Racing on the doorstep!!!
Er, wrong. Due to noise restrictions, there are very few meetings at
the circuit.
Damn!
But, I aim to spend the day at the club meeting and am looking
forward to it, very much.
Looks like a good mix of classe, including 2 sidecar races.
All around what I think is a great viewing circuit.
You can see almost all the way round with binoculars from some
points.
A fast, sweeping circuit, too.
All a far cry from the days when I watched "exoica" such as a real
street style, Fred Warr entered Harley, dicing with Excelsior Ambassadors
and the like, over runways with huge clumps of grass sticking through!
Happy days and look what it got me in to!

Anyone here racing by any chance?

MV

Having posted the piece about Thruxton, I thought I would
"google" it.

I fopund the following on the Southampton and District Motorcycle club
website.

It would seem that the 1958 event was the first as the "500 miler" which
is probably why we went!

It makes interesting reading.


http://www.sdmcc.net/history/roadrace.html

http://www.sdmcc.net/history/endurance.html

Just have a look at the names in the 1958 results!!
One SMB Hailwood, the legendary Bob Mac AND the timeless Percy Tait!
Quite a lineup and I ah almost forgotten.
So, I must have seen Bob mac race much earlier than I first thought.
By the way, where is Percy tait now?

http://www.sdmcc.net/history/results.html

MV

MV, this is the club's website http://www.ngroadracing.org/

Following practice they have qualifying races to determine grid position for the championship races in the afternoon, so everyone gets two runs.
Apart from classics (unfortunately) all other solo classes are covered and the chairs usually go out first.

Should be a good day.

Thanks for that mate.
Yes, I managed to fiond the website.
Sounds like a good format for a good days racing!
I had some great fun with North Gloucester, but
mostly at practice days.
I spent hours one day, trying to make my Suzuki X7 go
faster than a classic 250 Ducati.
Didnt make it!
But what fun...

MV

Remember it well from the 60s as it was the place in a bank holiday national meeting that I got enough points on my national license to qualify for my full international licence.As the S&D MCC website says,the surface in those days was pretty awefull with plenty of holes and loose tarmac,but that was no different from many ex wartime airfield circuits. Last time I raced there it was a wet freezing day and I enjoyed the company of Paddy Driver trying to keep warm in the back of my Ford Thames(most racers had one) He had arrived recently from warmer climates and he shivered all day.
Wheres Percy Tait? Saw him last November looking well at the TTRA dinner.Same rough diamond Percy, lovely chap believe he is still tending his pigs in Warwickshire.

Thanks for that Arthur.
You summed up Percy nicely!
To me, he was in the Joey Dunlop mould to a certia extent.
I have a sharp memory of Percy out for the evening at the once trendy
Groudle Glen. He looked smart - ish but as you say, a real rough diamond.
But, a legend nevertheless.
Thats him and Slipery Sam.....

I have to say that your mention of "everyone had a transit van" does
conjur up racing in the 50s and 60s!
For some reason, more so at Thruxton for me than anywhere.
I seem to remember one David Croxford arriving in such a van filled
with waht was almost works mahinery.
Of course, Ecurie Sportive (or team Hailwood) also arrived in the
venerable vehicle.

Happy days eh?

I was thinking of the "all in a Transit van" scene while enjoying the
Klaafi Honda VIP Hospitality day in what was a high rise block compared to a transit van

One name missing from the Endurance results was Barry Sheene. He was riding a 500 Kawasaki triple with a MONSTER petrol tank, I think it was for one of the London dealers, possibly Revetts. Seems it took control round the back of the circuit and pitched him off. I have a shot of him walking the bent Kwaka back to the paddock.

I have to say that your mention of "everyone had a transit van" does
conjur up racing in the 50s and 60s!


Wow not the luxury of a Transit van in those days,The bike transporter to be seen in was a Ford Thames 15cwt 3speed hand change,70mph flat out downhill ! 1700cc.with vacuum wipers that stopped going uphill.
Could gear them up a bit if you changed the pinion on the crownwheel for a 10/12cwt model and some of the riders did beef the engines up a bit.
Amazing though journey's in those days took no longer than they do now as many travelled overnight or early morning and the roads were empty even through the centre of towns.

Carrying this racing transport a bit further here were some of the methods used to get men and bikes to meetings.
German sidecar aces would use VW Camper vans with awnings,they had the deluxe sleeping arrangements.
Phil Read turned up at Snetterton with 2 genuine works Yamahas wedged in the back of a Ford Zodiac estate car.
Many settled for towed trailers made from pre-war car front axles.
A guy Dickinson,not Gary, turned up at Mallory with his bike in the back of an undertakers funeral hearse.
I witnessed a rider extract a 350 Manx from inside a Morris Mini Minor and proceeded to reassemble it.
The Jamathi dutch team parked next to me at the Ulster with a decrepid pre-war Renault Van to look at it you would not expect it to make the Belfast Ferry on the way back to Holland.
If carrying a lightweight bike several resorted to a channel bolted in place of the rear bumper of a car on which you secured the bike sometimes with the front wheel removed,this was a favourite method used by the Speedway/Grasstrack clan.
Those were the make and mend and get by days to keep the wheels turning

This thread stirred some memories! Early days, with no money for a van, my mechanic/mate Peter Bryant and I used to take our racing Bantam up to Cadwell Park and other circuits in a box sidecar on a 350 Panther! We then graduated to the Thames 15cwt, eventually squeezing in a Zodiac 6 engine, with a shortened propshaft....you could go round a roundabout in this non-widened rocketship, and with a touch more throttle than strictly necessary lift the inside rear wheel so it spun violently. Unfortunately, although the the black plumes of rubber smoke used to look spectacular to spectators, they also poured into the van through all the rust holes in the wheel arches, limiting the exhibition time to as long as you could see !!! Most irresponsible !! (tee hee!!) We quickly learnt never to park in the paddock next to the Thames of the late Dave Nixon at Bantam Racing Club meetings if we were staying overnight, because as well as the Boyer Bonneville, he always seemed to have a young lady aboard, leading to all-night squeakings from the suspension for some reason........
It has all got a tad too serious these days....traffic density would make some of the things we did positively lethal, sadly>

Peter,

your contrubution here has made my day!
A breath of Spanish sunshine!
(nice mixed metaphor ther!!!)
I remember that Boyer machoen so well, especially at Brands.
I am so gratified that people have found this thread a memory stirrer.
Just what I intended.
Anybody else remember "getting there on a shoe string?"
I dont know why, but my memory cerlls just conjured up
images of Crystal palace.
Coming up from the station to the sound of Manx Nortons.
The works Tridents with Ray Pickrell and "Small Part"
Oh, and Ray Pickrell on "Winkle"
Anyone remember what machine that was?
All this on a day when I am due to go into work and announcve my early retirement!
Happy days!!

MV

Ah now - Crystal Palace! As a Croydonian, this had to be my local circuit - I think the second most dangerous (after Oliver's Mount!), but travel costs were so low I always had to enter! Memories? Pre-racing, I was in the VES, and the son of Margaret Ryerson who ran this, Brian Burgess, rode a Manx there in the Joe Dunphy/Griff Jenkins days. His friend Cyril Jones raced a Triunph, on which he had modified the frame to stop the famour weave on fast corners, especially if you closed the throttle, and worked for/with Richard Wyler, the "Man from Interpol" off the telly, who raced a 125 Honda, and had a motorcycle shop in Worcester Park as well as a coffee bar almost next to Streatham Ice Rink. I bought his (Wyler's) leathers when I started racing, so could for a while boast of having a 'film-star' figure! I remember one of my earliest races there was on a Bantam, and that gentleman of the tracks, Chas Mortimer, who was leading the race, held back from lapping me on the last lap (we were close to the line, so little risk to his position), clearly still able to remember that every lap was precious to a novice! On my last visit to the Island a few years ago Chas instantly converted the rotund figure in front of him into the sleek racing snake of the 70s, and did me the honour of remembering me.

Peter,

keeps those memories coming!
I remember Chas as a gentleman, too.
But that was purely from a fans point of view.
Joe Dunphy, Griff jenkins, they stir some memories!

But Richard Wyler?
We knew him for a different reason.
For of us bike race fans met him at Brands once and gor chatting.
He was an ok bloke, one of us.
I remember he rode one of the first American, export Bonnevilles
I ever saw. A goregous machine.
He joined us back at our whome base area (Heston) and I vaguely
recollect one of the girls in our group (a scen staright out of Grease!)
catching his eye.
I do remember him racing that Honda and a Greeves Silverstone (I think?)
at Thruxton.
Full circle!!

Oh, how much of my life I have wasted on bikes!!

I have just announced at work that I am taking early retirement
(just 7 months) and packing it in at the end of January.

Where has it all gone!
Now, I plan to waste my retirement, too!
Must get over to some Irish racing next spring.

MV