20 replies to this topic

[joeninety]

The title says it all

[TZ350H]

The title says it all

My dad took me to watch the 1965 Ulster Grand Prix practice. I will never forget the fantastic noise, speed and Castrol R smell of the 350cc Grand Prix bikes hurtling up through Jordan's Cross at Dundrod and the sight of my first super hero Jim Redman on the works Honda. That was the start of it and my life changed forever that day. I was just 7 years old.

[SMonty]

my first "machine" was an NSU Quickly - who remembers them?

It cost me £10 which had been saved up from the paper round I carried out - 6 days a week in all weathers for £1.50 / week!

My mate (who also had one) and myself used to race / grasstrack around a large playing field beside where we lived. That was it, bitten by the bug and dreams of being the next Barry Sheene or Tom Herron (my boyhood heroes) were hatched. First racer was a 125cc AS3 Yamaha which I bought and brought home in a couple of large cardboard boxes. Can still remember the look of horror on the faces of Mum & Dad. Trying to get that thing to run right was a disaster so my racing days didn't get started proper until, while still at college, and with hard earned proceeds from a part time job at a local hotel, I acquired a beautiful little ex Stephen Murphy MT125 Honda spending a whopping £1100.

Must make an effort and find out how to post some pics.

[burton500]

Went to the Jeff Crookbain School at Brands in 1979. Set the fastest lap time of the day, beating the MCN reporter Brian Tarbox by around 6 seconds a lap.

Then went proddy racing for a few years - only one win, but had a great time, and the memories are worth every penny.

[tonyed]

My parents took me, in the 50s, to see Geoff Duke at Silverstone and I would sit on the sofa at home (well things not moved on there then ) with a red biscuit tin on the sofa arm pretending it was the Gilera 4.

Then went to Mallory for the 1966 ROY.

It was foggy when we got there and we were on the bank on the outside opposite the paddock when the fog cleared to bright sunlight. It was like I had just woken up. That was it.

Febuary 14th 1967 I attended the Chas Mortimer racing school at a wet and windy Siverstone. One other chancer there that day turned out to be Duncan Hocking (Garys' brother). Didn't break any lap records but got soaked and racing fever.

During 1967 my Father and I (most my Dad) built a 250 Arrow racer. That's how it hit me.

Don't regret a thing except perhaps I would have rather started with 250 Honda six

Racing has made me into the man I am today

A poverty and arthritic ridden waste of time living in the past hoping for the return of two strokes and bead edge tyres.

[fil2.8]

[Russell Burrows]

Borrowed lots of money ;)

[bella]

My first race meeting was Mallory park post TT of 78, the only names i knew of were Sheene, Grant, Read and Haslam, some fella called Hailwood who i'd never heard of had the crowd on their feet when he won one of the races .
My next one was Donington 9th July 78, this bloke Hailwood took off and was leading by a distance until he crashed at the far end of the circuit, after the race he did a lap in a helicopter and when i saw the reception he got from the crowd i was thinking " well i've never heard of him but he must have won a few races in his day because the crowd love him ".
And while i now really regret not taking in the full sense of occasion, i do feel honoured to have seen Mike at work .
My most memorable moments are Hartog at Scarboro in 78, Hailwood and Ago's demo on the MV's at Silverstone 1979 and Spencer at the Oulton transatlantics 1980 .

[Arthur]

The local village policeman and Mr Bob Havers were responsible for getting me into road racing much to my parents disgust.
bought a BSA Empire Star road bike at 15yo with my paper round money savings and on my 16th birthday was away.Passed me test for my G group motorcycle license and by 19 yo was riding an Ariel Huntmaster.However the local village policeman got so fed up with the complaints he received over the years of my riding of these motorcycles that he slapped me on the wrist and said 'Arthur if you want to be John Surtees get yourself to Snetterton(our local track) where you can go as fast as you like. I enquired how and he suggested I speak to Mr Bob Havers,secretary of Snetterton Combine, who lived in our village.I duly knocked on Mr Havers door and he duly provided me with all the forms for a license and told me what to do Once I had a machine 125cc EMC he gave me an entry at the Snetterton National meeting and I was started on 13 years of utter enjoyment.

Edited by Arthur, 22 June 2011 - 19:08.

[Stu Pidman]

Arthur, was your EMC a split single Puch engined one?
I think they were the noisiest little things I have ever heard.
I would like to see one with modern expansion chambers.
Cheers, John

[Arthur]

Arthur, was your EMC a split single Puch engined one?
I think they were the noisiest little things I have ever heard.
I would like to see one with modern expansion chambers.
Cheers, John

Yes John it was.We did try an expansion chamber homemade on it but we had'nt got enough knowledge or experience to make it work.
On the plus side it had a lovely narrow kidney bean shaped alloy tank

[joepotts7]

Yes John it was.We did try an expansion chamber homemade on it but we had'nt got enough knowledge or experience to make it work.
On the plus side it had a lovely narrow kidney bean shaped alloy tank

Was the EMC something like this:
EMC split single

Ben

[Arthur]

Was the EMC something like this:
EMC split single

Ben

Mine was very similar although I cannot remember the exact layout. It did have 2 inlet ports and a magneto ignition.What I thought was perculiar was it had 1 main big end /conrod and the pumping piston was driven by a smaller conrod attached to the this as part of it

[rotrax]

The title says it all

Hi,At my school we had several bike mad kids who let me read their Green and Blue weekly mags. The race reports were my favourite reading. I was always around engines,both car and bike. My Granddad was a sometime Brooklands car mechanic,mostly on Riley's. My uncle frank had a Rudge with a sidecar chassis to take his ladders and buckets for his window cleaning round in South London. He would fit a platform and some bars made of gas and water pipes and race on the Grass at Brands Hatch and Layhams Farm. If it was wet he would do well-the old Rudge would grip and not spin up. With this around me I gravitated to watching at Brands and the Palace. I would hitch to Brands but I could get the bus to the Palace from right outside my house-the 137. I joined the Saltbox Club and entered a Scramble at Jewels Hill, near Biggin Hill.While I was practicing in an old sand quarry a guy asked if I would ride his bike,a grass track Velo on dope. After my bog stock Royal Enfield it went like a rocket and I subsequently bought it. It was much later when one of his mates told me that it had seriously hurt the previous owner and another guy due to its unpredictable handling,and that he was glad to be shot of it. I put oil in the forks (NONE IN 'EM!) and it was OK for me. My first race on the Velo was at Middle Barn Farm, Pullborough. Last in my heats but about halfway down the field in the Handicap. Its been all downhill from there.................

[picblanc]

I enjoyed both of those stories, but got this De ja vu feeling half way through the 2nd one!!

[rotrax]

I enjoyed both of those stories, but got this De ja vu feeling half way through the 2nd one!!

OOPS! MUST HAVE DOUBLE CLICKED!

[Lee Nicolle]

While never having raced bikes [but cars for over 30 years] I got into watching Speedway through the influence of my father who was a very good endurance trial rider in the 50s. He also rode a few scrambles and beach racing but was better at the endurance stuff. He was a speedway fan and knew [and had competed against] a lot of the competitors.
This was in the days of international solo racing in the 50s, 60s and 70s. These days they seem a bit tame though they still can put on a good show.
And Aussie speedway sidecars, they were crazy, and so spectacular. And still can be. But that was the days of Vincents, there is NOTHING like the sound of 4 or 6 of those things over 4 laps [and occasionally 6] And then the ring a dings came in and it was ever quite the same
It is still very occasionally repeated at classic meetings.
Modern outfits are still good but all sound the same, and do not shake the fillings from your teeth. But they still crash the same!! You can always pick the sidecar competitors walking around in the crowd, they are the ones that limp, and wince with every step

[StanN]

Although I used to cycle to scrambles events around the Chalfonts from my home in Heston while still at school, I attended my first road races as pit crew and dogsbody to my brother-in-law, Rod Saxton, when he started racing in 1960 with a 125cc Moto Rumi. The first race was an early season event at Thruxton and we drove down on the Sunday morning. That was the first time we met Denis Ainsworth, when he crawled out of the van we parked next to. Those were great years to be part of the action, watching Mike Hailwood, Bill Ivy, Dan Shorey and all the other short circuit scratchers in action.
Although I had a street bike on the road from my 16th birthday, as an engineering apprentice starting at 3.50GBP per week in 1960, racing was not on the cards but I did buy a partly restored 1947 MG TC that I finished and drove for a year before selling it to buy, yes, the Moto Rumi. My first race was a National event at Snetterton in March of 1963. I raced the Rumi for 2 seasons before buying a circa 1963 125 Bultaco TSS 4-speed from Grant Gibson who was moving up to a new water-cooled TSS. Raced that with some success for 3 years until we left for Canada in 1967.
I know it is on a different thread but my first racing transporter was a motorcycle and float. An older gentleman living close to Rod’s motorcycle shop in Kew asked him if he knew anyone who would be interested in taking his outfit, as he had no further use for it. When I visited him and after a long chat to ensure I wasn’t a cowboy, he agreed to give me the bike as a transporter. The bike was a 1927 McEvoy fitted with a 980cc JAP KTOR OHV racing motor and 3 speed hand change gearbox. I gathered it had been raced a Brooklands, but it was just an old bike to me then. I used this for a season before replacing it with a 1948(?) Bedford canvas roof van that I bough from a fellow worker, selling the McEvoy to someone for 12.50GBP. I wonder if it still exists, they are worth a small fortune now!
After settling in to our new country and moving to Ottawa with a new job, I made the mistake of going as pit crew with a local racer to Ste Jovite, now Tremblant, in 1971. I couldn’t resist the temptation so bought a 250 Ducati and started again in mid 71. After 1 1/2 seasons I bought a 1971 Yamaha TD2B from an AMA pro rider, Fred Guttner, at the last race of that season at Mosport, raced that for a year as a Junior then got “promoted” to the Pro ranks, then called Expert. Quit racing at the end of the 1974 season as it stopped being fun and I figured I should be more responsible, with a long suffering wife and 2 young children.
When vintage racing started in Canada in 1979 I rode my street bike down to the first race at Shannonville to spectate and ended up working a corner. At that time there was only the one race per year that the VRRA put on so I attended again in 80 and 81 before deciding that vintage racing looked like fun as they were racing pre-67 bikes, my era! So I bought a 1966 Greeves Silverstone from an advertisement in Classic Bike, had it shipped over and started racing again at the start of the 1982 season. It turns out the bike is an ex-Orpin, ex-Peter Williams bike, originally fitted with the water cooled conversion and the frame is extensively modified to reduce the frontal area and improve the riding position. Although now fitted with an air cooled cylinder it had not been raced for many years and took me a season to sort out, my wife and I spending the time between practice and the races with the barrel and piston off the bike cleaning up the result of numerous seizures. When the VRRA started a Period 2 for bikes up to 1972 in about 1984 I managed to buy back my old TD2B that had spent the time since I sold it in the back of various dealer’s workshops. Have been racing both bikes since then, now into my 30th year of vintage racing, still with my long suffering wife attending all the races and being involved on the Exec of the VRRA over this period, currently the Competition Coordinator for 2011/12, organizing the 4 races we run in Ontario and Quebec. Still, I tell her she only has herself to blame, our first date in 1964 was going with me to a race at Snetterton!
Stan Nicholson

[bella]

I got into motorcycle racing through my brother in laws ( all four of them) who were Grant and Haslam fans, the whole family would go to scarbrough for the day and the lads would go up to the mount while me, mam, dad and my sisters did the beach thing, then in 78 i decided to see what the fuss was about and became hooked.
The eldest brother in law bought a mini bus as part of a race fan syndicate and we travelled the country attending all the international meetings ( apart from brands cos it was too far ), there'd be about 10 of us in there, the men talking about racing heroes and sexual activities and me aged 15 not knowing much about either, one of the lads father was a steward at our working mens club and would fiddle a crate or four as well as the stock bought so there would be a drinking or driving rota organised as well.
A couple of the lads would lie on the bank at shaws hairpin and get slowly sozzled and by days end would wobble back to the bus saying " who won the race of the year ?) where did sheenie finish ?, where did Haslam finish ?, how did Jock Taylor get on ?."
They really were the good old days when you could see the world championship boys at Mallory, Oulton, Cadwell etc etc.

[Jambo]

Well I am from Ballymoney, attended my first race at two months old and grew up going to the races pretty much every weekend!

[dommieracer]

Well being a son of a former GP racer and having other family conneceted to motorsport i should have started at a young age, but no. The 1976 heatwave put paid to my first bike, up in smoke when the workshop went up with all of my dads racing momento's etc. Taught myself to ride several years later. Then when married i ended up on the tv programme Cilla's surprise surprise, (1996) i was hooked up with my hero Niall Mackenzie and a day with the Yamaha race school at Brands. Well it rained like mad and the day was halted after i had a massive slide coming out of bottom bend whilst being followed by Ron Haslam ( my instructor ). I was used to sliding as i lived on Dartmoor, so tractor diesel n cow muck made the roads fun to ride on. I returned in 97 and it was baking hot and all was going well, i was in the fast group when our instructor came past us and indicated that we are to carry on and pointed to his radio and gave a thumbs down. We did a couple of laps when the guy in front looked back at me and waved me past. Brill i thought and went for it. It was fab and i never looked back, i got picked up by some sponsor after being in the papers and upset a superbike racer when testing at Castle Combe as i was faster than him on his own bike! I entered the CB500 cup and was ....er....crap.