Hi all you interested Crescent fans. This is (or was) Geoff Barstard Changed my name to Barr WHY??
Wanted to get a little history correct re my involvement with Crescents and Ryan Crescents
I was laid off from Greeves in 1972 and was racing a 380 Griffon engined Silverstone which I still have.
I joined Willy Ryan and started racing his STEF framed Crescent which was built in his workshop by two gentlemen company name STEF who's names I cant remember.
At the same time Willy had me build a dual down tube frame from scratch which was initially raced by Brian Kirby and then by Mike Grant the South African from Pietermaritzburg.
Mike, was not too happy with the handling of this frame and Willy bought a Colin Seeley frame into which I built a new Crescent with a Greeves Griffon gearbox modified to 5 speed designed by Tony O'Neil of Greeves and the gears were built by Jack Knight.
Mike raced this version and the original flexy flier was sold I think directly to Pete Everns
Mike was hurt in a crash in Holland on his 250 Yamaha and went back to south Africa
After that Dave Potter raced the Seeley Crescent and I remember him beating Ago on a sickly MV at a Brands International in 1974. for 4th place in the final.
I continued with the STEF Crescent until I crashed it big time at Gerards bend at Mallory and broke the steering head off the frame.
At that time I was laid off from work and designed and built a new spine tube frame for my Crescent in John Vines workshop in the Southend area.
That bike debuted in spring 1975 and I had a pretty good run finishing 3rd in the 500cc British Clubmans championship behind John Heselwood on his 500 Suzuki and Jamie Milne on his 354 Yamaha.
For 1976, I had sold the Spine tube Crescent to my old friend Tony Edwards with his 250 air cooled Spondon Yamaha in part exchange. As part of the deal I modified the dual shocks to monoshock - see Tony's hilarious explanation elsewhere.
I raced Willy's Seeley Crescent for 1976 and had mixed success because the Krober ignition system was unreliable. I did have some good rides, one in particular at lydden finishing 3rd to Dave Potter on the Ted Broad 750 Yamaha.
The gearbox on the Seeley crescent gave problems with the 5 speeds being crammed into that little gearbox were too close and selected 2 gears at the same time. Third time off I told Willie I would not ride it any more, and so we parted ways.
I purchase a new TZ350C in the end of 1976 with which I finished my career in 1980.
I did see Mike Grant during a Hydroplane racing visit to South Africa in 1978
there were numerous hilarious incidents over the years, I'll only bore you with one now.
Willie was crazy about weight reduction, and he would go into the workshop at night and drill holes in the front cast iron disk. After the second new disk cracked, I bought the new disk and forbade him drilling holes as it was my property - I was only looking out for my neck!!!
It's been a long time and I had many friends during the 10 or so years I raced, so thanks for the memories
All the best
Geoff B
I