Hello !!!

I´m searching for Infos about the 1977-Sidecar-World-Champion George O'Dell.
It´s really hard to find some good Informations about him, so I would try to ask you.

I only know a few Things about him:

- lived (born ??? / died ???) in Hemel Hempstead (GB)

- He died in March 1981 in a house fire (at the age of 35 // Born 1946 ???)

- First run at the TT in 1970.

- Second Place at the TT in 1974 (500cc)

- Wins first leg of the TT in 1977.

- Crash ad broken leg at the Training of the TT 1978.

- Wins the Sidecar-World-Championship without a victory in 1977.

- Runs at the TT from 1970 to 1977.

- I´ve found him in the Point-Tables of the World-Championships from 1972 to 1980 (from 1972 - 1974 just with his TT-results).


Does anyone know something about him ???

When was he born (and where ???), When is he died (and where ???), was he married, any children ???
You see, every Information can help me. It would be very nice if someone has some information (or some Links).

hi i raced sidecars as a passenger in the 70's and early 80's and knew george slightly i have a book he wrote some where i will have a look for it and get back to you please feel free to e mail me

I remember George being a very proud Englishman ( not British ) wearing the cross of St. George on the back of his leathers. He was a diesel fitter by trade and became the mentor of the up and coming (fast) Jock Taylor both in G.P. and the T.T. . When George became World Champion, He took Harry Carpenter as passenger round a track for a B.B.C. film. The sound track above the noise of the outfit seemed to consist of Carpenter continually shouting 'Oh my God!'. I've never seen this since but maybe Harry himself(care of the B.B.C.) would be happy to furnish more information. Good Luck

Pardon my ignorance but do people really differentiate between British and English and if so what is the difference?

I would be interested in any information about when George O'Dell acquired his Konig angine and to know what chassis he put it in. I would guess 1973 but not sure. Janeen Newcombe remembered him well and liked him. Called him Sweet little George. The Konig must have driven him mad.
Does anyone have any knowledge of Jeff Gawley, Pete Sales, Chris Vincent or Nick Boret?
I'd be very interested in communicating with anyone who raced Konig powered side cars for my Kim Newcombe biography.
Tim Hanna

Let's see if me froggy can get that right

English is from England

British is from Britain* ( England + Wales + Scotland )

And above that you have the United Kingdom ( of Britain and Northern Ireland )

Do I get a "pass" mark ?



* the locals like to call it "Great" Britain but that's really just their own opinion

Let's see if me froggy can get that right

English is from England

British is from Britain* ( England + Wales + Scotland )

And above that you have the United Kingdom ( of Britain and Northern Ireland )

Do I get a "pass" mark ?



* the locals like to call it "Great" Britain but that's really just their own opinion

Almost.... The people of Northern Ireland are British; whether they all want to be is another matter.

The term Great Britain is said by some to have first been used to in the 14th century to distinguish Greater Britain (England and Wales) from Minor Britain (France).

Almost.... The people of Northern Ireland are British; whether they all want to be is another matter.

The term Great Britain is said by some to have first been used in the 14th century to distinguish Greater Britain (England and Wales) from Minor Britain (France).

I would be interested in any information about when George O'Dell acquired his Konig angine and to know what chassis he put it in. I would guess 1973 but not sure. Janeen Newcombe remembered him well and liked him. Called him Sweet little George. The Konig must have driven him mad.
Does anyone have any knowledge of Jeff Gawley, Pete Sales, Chris Vincent or Nick Boret?
I'd be very interested in communicating with anyone who raced Konig powered side cars for my Kim Newcombe biography.
Tim Hanna

Almost.... The people of Northern Ireland are British; whether they all want to be is another matter.

The term Great Britain is said by some to have first been used in the 14th century to distinguish Greater Britain (England and Wales) from Minor Britain (France).

Not sure if you are interested or not Tim, but a sidecar racer from Wiltshire by the name of Dennis Keen used to race a konig engined sidecar in the 70s, had some decent reults at GP level too, I think 3rd or 4th was his best.
Apparently he also made up a twin engined outfit too.

Does make sense .... in french we use the same word "Bretagne" both for Brittany ( french Bretagne) and Great-Britain ( Grande-Bretagne ) although why there is a reference to Brittany when the conquerors of England originally came from Normandy ( OK, from Scandinavia, with a few years stop in Normandy....) which is a different french province to Brittany, remains a mistery to me - should have called it "Great Normandy" rather....

Seriously though, Russel, I did think there was a subtle difference between the UK and GB , and that it precisely was with or without Northern Ireland . Do you maintain that the Northern Irish are "british" nevertheless ? ( this is a serious question, not another 100 years war style tease )

What I did know ( to come back to motorcycle racing ) is that the riders from Northern Ireland had the privilege to choose wether they wanted to take their licence at the ACU or at the MCUI - which makes things even more complicated for statisticians like Vincent Glon ( from the Racing Memo website ) when they want to get nationalities straight in their files....

Oh yeah, the Channel Islands, the ones just off your coast in the English Channel, are not part of the UK, only crown dependencies

Same applies to the IOM ?

Pardon my ignorance but do people really differentiate between British and English and if so what is the difference?

Hi Nigel & Tim, and all,
Yes Dennis from Marlborough on the 'Keenig', 2 motors.Fearsomely quick when it went on any more than 6 pots.I remember Dennis was a 'substantial' lad so needed all the horses he could muster.Is he the dad of Royston?
Trevor (Ireson) had at least a couple of Konigs when he was supported by Joe Henderson.
I will PM you Tim about Hans.
Have just got my George Odell book back from Tom (Motard).Some great pics,but daren't post any in case the copyright 'fuzz' jump on me.
ATB the Herr

Hi Andy,

Yes Royston is Dennis's son, and a good mate of mine, have been chatting with him recently. Dennis wasn't known for his machine preperation, it wasn't un-common for his fairing to be held on with bailing string, amongst other innovations!

Nigel

Thats how I remember him also Nige wish there were more like him now ................

Do you remember Dennis's Jagauar XJS that he used to tow his caravan with Phil? sounds flash until you realise he had fitted a Leyland truck engine to it, and a very black smoking one at that, had a Mull grip wrench for a gear change!
His house/workshop in Aldbourne looked like Steptoes yard too, and was hard to pick out where the workshop ended and the house started , all good characters though that Wiltshire bunch!

Nick & Gerry Boret are no longer with us, dying in separate non motor sport accidents I seem to remember.

According to my programme the Green & Yellow bike (seen in earlier posts) from 1975 was Konig powered, but he also raced a 700 Yamaha powered machine later that year, may be because it was more reliable?

As you know, they're Celts, who for some, where the original inhabitants of these Islands - Welsh, Scots, Irish, Cornish. I think Brittany became home to these particular Celts after a German thrust westward into Britain around 500.

Hi Nigel & Tim, and all,
Yes Dennis from Marlborough on the 'Keenig', 2 motors.Fearsomely quick when it went on any more than 6 pots.I remember Dennis was a 'substantial' lad so needed all the horses he could muster.Is he the dad of Royston?
Trevor (Ireson) had at least a couple of Konigs when he was supported by Joe Henderson.
I will PM you Tim about Hans.
Have just got my George Odell book back from Tom (Motard).Some great pics,but daren't post any in case the copyright 'fuzz' jump on me.
ATB the Herr

Sorry to leap about (It is nearly spring here) but can anyone tell me who raced the Monark Crescents and any variations.

Hi Phillipe and thank you for the welcome.

I did work with Rudi for a while and whilst with him I had the opportunity to ride the solo at the French GP at Paul Ricard.
It used the same engine as the outfit but suffered cooling problems due to the somewhat limited space for a radiator compared with the sidecar version. This lead to several exiting moments on the Mistral Straight when the cooling system reached bursting point and relieved itself through the radiator cap straight up under the screen and back into my face, the resulting steam cloud rendering me temporarely blind whilst flat out The wheels were six spoke Offenstadts with three spokes removed Due to its light weight and extremely low build the handling was superb, but the brakes, which I believe were Dunstall, were hopeless. The rear suspension was catilever using a modified Citroen car unit much the same as the three wheeler. The workmanship, as with all Rudis project was superb.
With further developement I think it would have been quite successful. Unfortunately the pressure of Rudis GP campaign and the fact that I left prematurely to join Kawasaki meant the end to my involvement.

Hi All
This is my first post so I hope you will all be patient with me. Having studied the forum for several months I have decided to join in the fun. What finally pushed me over the edge was the recent mention of a friend from the past, Geoff Barstard. I lived near him in Norfolk before he started racing, and can remember he had an NSU 250 which got engine damage before he had a chance to use it. The next machine was a Greeves Silverstone with a 380cc scrambles motor. I believe he won a round of the fledgling Clubmans series at Lydden on this machine. Sometime around 1972-3 he was working near Southend, and ended up buying a Crescent from Willy Ryan, who ran the Woodman garage, and supplied the local hydroplane racers with the Crescent engines. This machine was orange & white, and fitted in what I believe was a Stef frame, made somewhere in Essex. Eventually this frame broke at the headstock after a heavy impact at Mallory's Gerards bend. Geoff salvaged what he could and built his own frame with a large diameter downtube rather in the style of the horizontal Manx Norton, which he campaigned until he bought a new TZ 350c. The Crescent then passed to Tony Edwards. After a couple of more years Geoff got married and moved to N America, and the last I heard he was living in S Africa.
With regard to the various Crescents,I would imagine that most of them, apart from the Kurth solo, originated from Willy Ryan. Certainly on one occasion when we visited, a frame was pointed out as being the "brass frame" because it had so many mods! The Stef frame that Geoff had was ex Ryan, and may have been ridden by Pete Bailey at one time. The next model was ridden at various times by Tom Dickie, Brian ( 5 star) Kemp and the South African Mike Grant. What I believe to be the last model was, I think, Seeley framed, and had a geared primary drive. This was ridden by Dave Potter, whom I witnessed equalling the 500cc lap record on it while practising on the Wed prior to what was possibly the last Race of Aces on the full Snetterton circuit, a meeting won incidentally by your erstwhile correspondent Yendor. The Everns Crescent could possibly be the Ryan machine which would have been between the Stef and Seeley ones.
Okay, thats it for the first one. Not too OTT I hope, but I have been building up to it for a while, and I don't suppose I will have so much to tell you in future.

Two old posts I found about the Crescent Solo

Sidecar Champions:
Pip Harris 1958, 1959
Bill Boddice 1960, 1962
Chris Vincent 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1971
Owen Greenwood 1966, 1967
Peter Brown 1968
Norman Hanks 1972
Gerry Boret 1973
Mac Hobson 1974, 1975
Dick Greasley/Cliff Holland 1976 (and also won 1976 Motor Cycle International series)
Bill Hodgkins/John Parkins 1977
Derek Jones/Brian Ayres 1978
Dick Greasley/John Parkins 1979
Jock Taylor/Benga Johansson 1980, 1981

Here is an update:

Gerry Boret/N Boret 1973
Mac Hobson/K Russel 1974
Mac Hobson/H Birch/K Russel 1975
Dick Greasley/Cliff Holland 1976 (and also won 1976 Motor Cycle International series)
Bill Hodgkins/John Parkins 1977
Derek Jones/Brian Ayres 1978
Dick Greasley/John Parkins 1979
Jock Taylor/Benga Johansson 1980, 1981
Bruce Ford-Dunn/Alistair Pirie 1982, 1983
Steve Abbott/Shaun Smith 1984
Steve Webster/Tony Hewitt 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988
Barry Brindley/Grahame Rose 1989

I was reading through the list of British sidecar champions on the George O´Dell thread, when I saw the name of Derek Jones.
Dear me, what a character.
I was walking past the scrutineering bay at the German TT, at the Nurburgring, one year, when I spied Jonsey talking to an official who was obviously unhappy about some detail on his sidecar. Of course, the German fellow couldn´t speak English, and Derek's German was non existent, but they were nevertheless still arguing the point, with Derek's voice rising with each shake of the official´s head.
Anyone who has met Derek will understand why the scene was reaching epic comedy proportions with each passing minute. He was a lovely bloke, but had rather unusual looks, being rather tall and gangly, very bald, and with very thick lensed spectacles.
With him unwilling to alter whatever it was that was being objected to, the scrutineer dismissed him with a wave of his hand and called the next rider forward.
Derek stood rooted to the ground, and with his face a mask of anger.
I could see he was planning his next move.
Suddenly, he swiveled on his heel, shot his hand out in a Nazi salute, and proceeded to goose step up and down the scrutineering bay, shouting, sieg f**king heil, all the while looking in the direction of the bemused official.
Needless to say, they were not amused.

Nick & Gerry Boret are no longer with us, dying in separate non motor sport accidents I seem to remember.

According to my programme the Green & Yellow bike (seen in earlier posts) from 1975 was Konig powered, but he also raced a 700 Yamaha powered machine later that year, may be because it was more reliable?

Hi OYB, welcome to our world of the old farts forum! Look forward to reading some of your tales of yesteryear.

Hi

I knew George for a few years up until he won the world championship in '77 up until his death. My father was Eric May, who sponsored the outfits in the last years. Unfortunately my Dad died last year, but I have his scrap book full of cuttings and photos. If you have any specific questions, or want copies of the articles etc. I can help you.

Yes Julie , try and keep the scrapbook as intact as possible , wish I had kept some stuff there is no price for memories , and you must be very proud , and quite rightly so , of your father

Yes Julie , try and keep the scrapbook as intact as possible , wish I had kept some stuff there is no price for memories , and you must be very proud , and quite rightly so , of your father

Where can I find these Infos. I´m googling and googling.......But my English is not the best.;)

And does anyone know a Site where I can find some Infos about the national-Sidecar-Championship in Britain ???