3 replies to this topic

[tonyed]

Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 4th Baronet, KCB MVO

 

An enthusiastic member of the Motor Cycling Club, he kept his motorbike in his day cabin and engaged in long-distance endurance races. In 1908, he came third in the single-cylinder class of the Isle of Man TT and indeed were there any other TT competitors killed at the battle of Jutland?

 

Now I would hazard a guess that the name of this particular noble of the realm does not turn up to too many club pub quizzes or indeed is the subject of heated debate over a pint in the snug and indeed the cause and place of his death.

 

So how many other names long forgotten in the annals of the history of our sport should rightfully be the subject of our nostalgic recollection?      

 

Answers, of course, on the back of a beer mat, and surreptitiously, slid into view of your companion quiz team member whose question it was.      

Edited by tonyed, 26 January 2022 - 13:31.

[Michael Ferner]

W. O. Bentley, later of Bentley Motors fame, retired on the first lap of the 1909 Senior TT, and again on the second lap of the 1910 edition. Not a very auspicious record, but mind you, he was running in eighth place after that first lap of the latter event, in a field of over seventy riders - his first lap speed from a standing start stood as the 14th fastest of the day!

 

A visitor from the colonies, Los Angeles/California, Paul Derkum finished an unremarkable 32nd in the 1914 Senior TT (though, in fairness, he was running near the top ten during five of the six laps, encountering an unspecified problem on the last). Who he, you ask? Derkum returned home and promoted racing at Bakersfield/California for the next two decades, and also designed and built the famous (Legion) Ascot Speedway in El Lay, the hottest racing joint in America during the early thirties (when Indianapolis was in the doldrums because of the "junk formula").

 

G. A. "Tony" Vandervell of Vanwall fame, retired on the last lap of the 1921 Senior TT. He had the honour of recording fastest practice time on the eleventh of twelve practice days that year which, admittedly, wasn't very well attended - it was the slowest "fast time" on any day of practice bar the first one, almost five minutes slower than Reggie Brown's top time of 40 minutes ten seconds.

[Vitesse2]

One of the race winners in France's first post-WW2 bike race meeting in Nice in September 1945 was a home-town boy who had first raced at the tender age of 17 in 1938, so had of course lost what might have been his best years to the war. He did however become rather better-known on four wheels.

 

His name?

 

Jean Behra.

 

[My great-uncle was also killed at Jutland (serving on HMS Ardent) - he was not a bike racer though, merely a humble railway company clerk in civvie street.]

[Michael Ferner]

Oh, Jean was a pretty good biker, too. He was sixth at the 1947 Swiss GP 500cc race, riding a private Guzzi single, and sixth again the following year when it was the Berne GP, albeit with a full international field. He also came close to winning an international race at Lausanne in '49, finishing second in the 125cc. He would have had a great career if he hadn't changed to cars.