SUZUKI GARAGE - Isle of Man TT - 1981
Standing L to R: Rex White, Martyn Ogborne, Mick Smith, Croz's girlfriend Brenda, Croz, Yosh engineer Asakawa-San, Dave (Junior) Collins, Pops Yoshimura.
Front Row L to R: Dave (Radar) Cullen, Pops daughter, Gordon Whitehead.
Mick Smith now works for Honda Australia and manages their racing efforts. Radar works for Kawasaki Australia and also manages their racing team.
OK, I now realise this post is in the wrong place but I'll finish it here and do better next time.
So Paul was correct although I don't recognise the location he suggests. I took this shot outside of the garage of the Majestic Hotel - the Magic Stick - which was close to the gates just off the main road and some distance from the hotel itself. I think the Majestic Hotel was on King Edward Road, Onchan at the opposite end - the Northern end - of Douglas Bay to the harbour. It was at the top of the hill and had a good view over the length of Douglas promenade.
Officially, Gordon Whitehead was in charge of the team's parts but he was, in reality, much more than this. In the 1950s he was a mechanic for many famous F1 drivers. He worked for High Efficiency Motors (Tommy Atkins) who sponsored such drivers as Roy Salvadori, Jack Brabham, Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren (amongst others) with his cars - mainly Coopers I believe. When McLaren started making his own cars, Gordon joined him and when Peter Agg (the owner of Suzuki GB before Heron bought him out) started to build production McLaren F1 cars under the Trojan badge in the early 1970s, Gordon joined Trojan. From there it was a short step for Gordon to move over to Suzuki GB when Trojan stopped building racing cars and Suzuki was contesting the world championship with Sheene, Williams and Newbold in 1976. Gordon was a full member of the British Racing Drivers' Club and used to obtain passes for hangers-on like me into the BRDC's facilities at Silverstone. I don't know what happened to Gordon but he was a very quiet, unassuming guy with spades of racing experience.
This garage evokes a number of memories. The young scouse hotel waiters and waitresses lived in a dormitory above this garage so there were plenty of comings and goings all night, especially comings I recall. The garage was a real pit of a place. The Magic Stick is the only hotel where I've seen a live rat in the dining room (during breakfast).
I remember the Majestic garage as the place where Martyn and Radar worked non stop for two days and nights preparing Hailwood's winning Suzuki two years earlier. Then it was a recurring main bearing oil seal problem. I recall SMBH sliding the garage door open late the evening before the race to see his Suzuki engine smattered all over the filthy garage and worked on by the two young sprogs. "Eveything all right lads?" he said, his head popping through the barely open door. "Yeah, no problems," Martyn replied. Hailwood raised an eyebrow and said goodnight. The next day, in his post-race radio interview Hailwood was asked about the race. "Before I answer that, I'd like to thank Martyn and Radar my mechanics for all their hard work..." What a man!
I recall one year (maybe 1981) when Rex wanted to speed up the pit stop which was limited by the fuel flow rate of the antique 1930s' style TT fuel filler guns. So in the early morning hours before race-day, Rex and I went down to the pits in the van and removed two or three filler systems off their posts which we brought back to the Magic Stick. I put a gallon of fuel in each and Rex clocked the time taken to pass the fuel with a fully open gun. We chose the fastest kit and I dismantled its gun. It was an aluminium sand-casting and as rough as a bear's backside inside. It was full of gunge and had probably never been serviced since Shell donated the fuel systems (in the 1930s I once heard). I used the team's dental porting drill to clean and polish the insides of the gun. I adjusted the valve to remove the free-play to provide maximum lift on full trigger. I reassembled the high speed gun.
After a couple of hours work, Rex checked the time saved for a full fuel dump. Over four seconds. That's gotta be a record for effort per second saved. We marked the gun so that we could find it at subsequent TTs. All we'd have to do then was exchange the kit for the one we'd been allocated.
I have some other photos I took during an all-nighter in 1981. I guess I'll eventually post them on the right thread.
Sergio
I thought it had all been a dream 
Do you know anything about it ?? If as you say it was a 'rocket' or was it an ex Bruce Beale semi -works machine 
--could it be in a different frame ???