4 replies to this topic

[Telbert]

Anyone know what happened to Derek when he stopped racing? Wasn't he a farmer in the Boston area of Lincolnshire? He's one of the guys i vividly remember from my earliest meetings spectating at Cadwell Park and Olivers Mount. A few of the guys from those early 70's meetings still turn up at classic meetings etc (apologies if this causes any upset, it's honestly not my intention, i just wondered if Chat was still with us).

[picblanc]

Have not heard that he isn't?

Got a signed b/w photo from a bike show in London in around 1970/71 of Derek, still got it somewhere?

[Paul Collins]

Derek was still alive and well when I left the area 3 years ago, he lived in Caistor not that far from Cadwell and I think he still does a bit of bike/parts importing from home.

 

I haven't seen him personally for years now but I bought a couple of TZ's from him and used to be in and out of his shop in Grimsby regularly for parts in the 1980's.

 

He wasn't a farmer, he ran a bike shop called Chatterton Motors originally in Sibsey near Boston, then moved across to a shop in Grimsby in the mid 70's and operated from there until around 1990.

 

Nice bloke Derek, and a quick rider in his time.

Edited by Paul Collins, 22 December 2013 - 14:01.

[BillPentelow]

Bang on Paul, nice bloke??

 

Fell out with Derek over crank in a previous thread, start of 1976. But met him at A Snetterton practice day a few months later and had a pretty nasty battle with him on track until his experience showed , hey he beat AGO! and he took my front wheel from under me in the bombhole.

Pretty sure it was deliberate but he did slow on the next lap and give me a thumbs up. Thoroughly nice bloke ,   

[Paul Collins]

He beat Ago twice, the one everyone remembers is when he took the win from him at Cadwell in 1971, but he also beat him earlier that year as did Paul Smart & Tony Rutter when they pushed Ago back to 4th in the 350 race at Cadwell, I think Derek was 3rd that day that was pretty much when Ago stopped running the 350 at English Internationals as he couldn't fend off all the TR2B's in the hands of circuit specialists.

 

I learnt a few tricks from Derek when working on a couple of motors with him in his workshops, he knew exactly how to build a Yamaha motor to perfection, he never tuned them as such, he just built them to perfect tolerances with a couple of little tricks thrown in for reliability. 

 

He was a shrewd businessman, but personally I found him very fair to deal with, I remember buying one of my TZ's from him and he insisted before we did the deal we took it into the workshops, stripped it down and rebuilt it together and he offered to replace anything that I wasn't completely happy with inside the motor, he said he wanted to make sure I was completely happy with it before he took my money, can't say fairer than that.

 

A hard man on the track though Bill as you say, but weren't they all at that level.