Bikes page 5

The following bike pics are shown with Ivan's permission they are part of the Ivan Mauger Australian Museum which you can visit here www.ivanmauger.com

Update: Ivan Mauger says: Gordon and Jim rode for Mike Parker at Sunderland in 1964,when that closed they rode for Mike at Wolverhampton. Jim later rode for Sheffield and Gordon at Poole. Both rode at Brough Park several times each season. Gordon was killed in 1970 at Liverpool near Sydney.

From 1981-1984 Ivan was a Weslake Works Rider. He had 6 machines like the one shown below. Britain's best, ridden by the worlds best. What happened to the great British marque? Do you know why Weslake went to the wall? John

Thank you Ivan for these bike pictures. The Weslake rivalled the Jap as British machinery at it's best

This action photo is of Larry Ross and me leading Kai Niemi and Olli Tyrvainen at the Semi final of the World Pairs at Vojens on 6th June 1982.
Cheers Ivan
What a great surface for racing on top marks to Vojens. Ivan's Wessy leading the way.

Courtesy of Reg Fearman
Reg's Gear ratio chart used by him in 1948. Is the info useable with today's machines?

Bob Andrews says: From memory I think Reg must be about right? 8.95 on a JAP. To get it, you divide the teeth of the front sprocket into the teeth on the clutch. Then divide the sprocket behind the clutch into the back sprocket. Then multiply the two answers together. So 20t on front into 40t, on clutch is 2.15t clutch into 60t.back is 4. Multiply 2X4 is 8.00. (But clutches were 44t.) But I suppose you already knew that.?? Bob
Nah I knew nothing
Giffy says: Hi John, if the memory serves me right at Brough we pulled a gear ratio of 8.8 to 1 on the JAPS and 9.3 to 1 on the two valve Jawa, regards old mate, giffy
Rob Best says: I have just asked Clarkie (Roy Clarke) what they are running this year (2009) at Brough and its 62 as its so slick

Dave Gifford says: This is the bike that Sprouts (Ivan Mauger), rode in the US in 1970, a two speed two valve Jawa. The bike was owned by Dan Cotterman and tarted up by George Wenn for Ivan to use. The inscription on the tank reads, Ivan Mauger, World Champion, 1970. Giffy
Not many 2 speed speedway bikes around. I presume the low gear was used for starts and the bike ran the rest of the 4 laps in the higher gear?

Below: 2 pictures from Denmark the sender is building a Godden drag bike for the drag race series over there. In the course of the e-mails he sent me a photo from a friend of his who has a collection of speedway engines on the wall of his garage.

A picture from Denmark showing a Jawa crank, barrel, and head grafted to a Royal Enfield crankcase. This is run in some sort of drag racing "street" class over there.

George Winstanley says: Here's a pic of me aged 13/14 on my 150cc Villiers grass bike. I was a member of the Lancashire grass track junior riders club.

Young George astride a Villiers-engined grass-track bike. I had a James with the same flywheel magneto engine. Villiers and Jap were the UK's premier engine makers and the two companies joined forces but couldn't stave off the Honda led Japanese invasion in the late 1960's.

Ivan Mauger and son Kym's Aussie/NZ Han Zeirk Godden Antig. Kym won the New Zealand Long Track Championship on this bike.

1976 World Championship Long track Bike -First 4 Valve Jawa Engine to be raced and win on debut. Eng No 001.[Background light spoilt this photo a bit.]

Update: Ivan Mauger says: Re the other photos that John Able sent. John was David Bergh's mechanic all the time Bargie was at Newcastle. John helps me restore a lot of my Bikes and as you see he does a great job. He done most of my 1976 Long Track bike and tidied up my Gold bike before I put them in the Christchurch Museum in Sept 2007
Hope this helps

1930's Bike probably a Rudge

1930's maybe a Douglas

1930's Scott

Another Rudge I presume. If you can supply info on these 4 bikes I would be pleased to hear it John

Photo taken at the Primer Nationals, The frame appears to be half Rudge with a newer swinging arm fitted? Also the wheels look odd but it is still a fine looking bike.

1974 Jawa 890

Pictures of this Jawa, courtesy of Geir Overby

Norwegian Geir has restored this Jawa 890 the engine dates from 1974 and the frame 1968-74 it is beautiful to look at. Well done Geir.

Weslake Land Speed Record

I moved home to California and started racing my converted speedway weslake at El Mirage dry lake. I run it on race gas (petrol) VP C12. It holds the record there at 129.817mph. Which brings me to a question. I don't know the year of the motor. Its not really important but I'm curious. Is there anywhere that I could find records of Weslake motors?

Many thanks for setting up such a wonderful site.

Bill Anderson

If anyone can help Bill send me an email John

Weslake Land Speed Record Sidecar Racer

Photo Courtesy of Bill Anderson the owner of this Weslake

Bill says: The Weslake engine I'm using in the Norton (see 592) has proved so reliable not to mention fast I've been building a sidecar for land speed racing. Its a later pushrod engine. I had it in the Norton to check it out and it ran 125mph at El Mirage. Plus several other runs all over 120mph. Again I just thought I'd throw it in for a laugh.

If anyone else is using an ex speedway engine for another purpose, please email me John

For Sale

Weslake engine for sale ex Anders Michanek. email Tommy for details

Old Frame

Courtesy of Bill Anderson

Hello John,

I stumbled across this old photo I took when living in Dun Laoghaire many years ago. Since "discovering" your site it was rattling around in my head. I know it's an ancient speedway frame. The front wheel is not part of it (obviously!). It came out of the basement of a house in Mount St., Dublin in the early 70s. The house was to be demolished so I "rescued" it rather than see it go to the dump. I can't remember what I did with it. I think I gave it to a friend when I left Ireland and I think he still has it. I must give him a shout and find out. Just thought you might like to have it for your files.
Bill

Hi Bill I think the frame is a 1940's Jap? some riders used a grasstrack front wheel hence the brakedrum. I can remember Newcastle rider Russ Dent using a front wheel like this one and that was in the 1960's so maybe the frame is 40's but the front wheel is later. If your friend still has the bike ask him to take a few more pictures.
John

Bike Auction

Dear Sir,

I thought you may be interested to learn that Cheffins Auctioneers have consigned a number of machines and spares from the estate of the late Sid King and amongst other things will be auctioning on the 18th October 2008 a 1928 Dirt Track Douglas plus another dismantled (restored parts ready for re-assembly), a c1930Rudge 4 valve speedway machine, c1932 Commerford JAP speedway machine and a c1935 Martin JAP speedway machine, there are also a qty of JAP engines.

Sid King was not a rider but seems to have been fairly well known in the VMCC and restoration circles, he restored a number of Brooklands machines as well as early Dirt Track and Speedway. I understand he worked for Vic Martin (as per the bike) in 1949-50 which is where the passion for all things JAP came from

Jeremy V P Curzon MNAVA

Cheffins Auctioneers

Clifton House

1 & 2 Clifton Road

Cambridge CB1 7EA

01223 213777

www.cheffins.co.uk

There are 5 bikes for sale as at 5th September 2008 pictures follow below:

1932 Comerford Jap

1928 Douglas DT

Douglas in Pieces

1935 Martin Jap

1930 Rudge

1966 Eso Speedway. Czechoslovakian built. The bike that signalled the end for the British Jap. The Eso (Czech word meaning Ace) wasn't any faster than the Jap but it needed less work to maintain and could do more meetings between rebuilds. The Eso firm later amalgamated with Jawa and the Eso name was lost in favour of Jawa. The early Jawa /Eso 890 continued to dominate for most of the 1970's. Engine conversions such as Neil Streets 4 valve head became well known amongst riders wanting extra power.

1981 Godden Mk2

Weslake took on Jawa in the mid 1970's and for a few years vied successfully with the Czech's although by approx 1983 it had had it's day.

The "poor mans speedway bike" James Carnie aboard a dirt track BSA complete with back stand and what appears to be the rear brake drum. The rules of the day said brakes must be made inoperative, so if it was a brake drum it would have been disconnected.

BSA's Last effort as far as speedway was concerned. We think this bike was c1970. Did you own one? Do you know of anyone who raced one? Send me an email if you can help John
Update: Jim Henry says: Alan Graham raced a BSA in the 70s. His machine, fully restored with a North frame is in Scotland.
If anyone can take a picture of it I will put it on this webpage John
Update: Terry Stone says: This bike may have been ridden by Bill Landells who rode for Edinburgh or Berwick.

Nigel Boocock experimented with the Matchless in 1965. Has anyone any photographs or do you know why it wasn't a success John

From Tony Webb: -
Jack Emmott Tuner and MATCHMAKER builder
Jack Emmott was well known for his connections with developing a Matchless engine for speedway and the production of his Matchmaker frames, his life was closely weaved around road racing, grass track and speedway. In fact it was rare for an engineer to be associated with the completely different disciples of road racing and speedway as there are very few similarities. Road racing was his first love but later he switched almost entirely to building frames and tuning engines for speedway and grass track.

Jack spent most of his working life in London, but he was a West Yorkshire man by birth, born in Keighley in 1924. He served with the Royal Engineers in Scotland where he met his wife. They moved south to work for Lord and Lady Bray. They then moved to Godalming in Surrey where Jack started in the motorcycle trade working for a local dealer Graham Brown. Australian road racer Bob Brown loaned Jack the funds to buy a house in London. Bob was later killed in a road racing accident while practising for the 1960 German Grand Prix in Stuttgart. Jack had a strong connection with road racing and had many lasting friendships with road racers. The well known Australian Kel Curruthers, who was 1969 250cc World champion, stayed at the Emmott's while racing in the UK.

The area of London where Jack lived was known as Little Australia due to the number of road racing and speedway riders in residence there. Sydneysider, the late Geoff Curtis and Australian test star Ray Cresp, road racers John Dodds and Mike Duff and scramblers Roy East and Jack Pringle were all residents of Little Oz.

An opportunity arose at Associated Motorcycles Company at Plumstead road Woolwich in the race shop , a chance that Jack grabbed with both hands. It was there he developed the Matchless G85 CS for speedway with the help of Nigel Boocock and Malcolm Simmons and also worked on the AJS 7R and the Porcupine. The G85 CS was developed from the standard G85 series engine that could be obtained off the shelve from the AMC Woolwich factory. Jack’s modifications were intended for grass track and speedway but could also be suitable for Moto cross. The standard cast piston was replaced with a lighter forge piston more suitable for high compression. Machining 0.25" off the cylinder base and using plates ratios of 11-14.5 to 1 were obtained. A floating engine sprocket carrier eliminated primary chain mis-alignment. Under testing the OHV rocker assembly was found to stress, this was solved by modifying the camshaft, which did not increase power but it did eliminate valve float and enabled the use of a lighter valve spring, which in turn benefited acceleration.

Another modification was the magneto mountings which were located directly on the rear of the timing case, the engine could then be removed without disturbing the magneto and timing, the general specification was 497 cc [86mm x 85.5], 50 b h p on methanol, alloy cylinder head and piston. After a few years with AMC he joined Swan Vesta, the match making company, as an engineer and that is where the name Matchmaker was born for his grass and speedway frames. Jack went into business on his own after leaving Swan Vesta, he gained a reputation as an excellent tuner and a innovative frame builder.

The Matchmaker frame found its way to all parts of the world. Argentinean rider George Kisling came to London to collect one, and Australians Jim Ryman and Roy East both took Matchless engines back to Sydney around 1970. However Matchless engines were a popular choice for short circuit racing in Australia from the early sixties. A program I have for a short circuit meeting at Arthur Park in Brisbane shows 5 Matchless mounted riders including Bob Sharpe, the late Lex Fielding, George Chadwick, Les McKenna and Matt Niblock. Jacks son Neil recalls the existence of a log of all the engines and frames that were sold and is trying to track it down. There were other products that Jack pioneered including a solid clutch plate to replace the metal plates with a fibre insert which were used in the AMC clutch.

Jack also designed a speedway type forks with grass track type rubber band suspension that were trialled by Australian Ray Cresp and Kiwi Graeme Smith and found to be very suitable for the rough tracks , that were shared with stock cars in the early days of the provincial league Jack was the official machine examiner at West Ham speedway 1964-65, where he gained the respect of the riders for his fairness and his mechanical knowledge. The stars at West Ham at the time were Olle Nygren, Ken McKinlay and Malcolm Simmons. Former Canterbury/Crayford speedway and grasstrack/longtrack rider John Hibben recalled that Jack was a great mentor to him and tuned his engines for him. Jack Emmott sadly passed away at the age of 47 in March 1972, he left a legacy in road racing and speedway, he was truly one of the unsung heroes of motorcycling sport.
Copyright Tony Webb Brisbane January 2009 binbooks@iinet.net.au

References and resources
Neil Emmott son
John Hibben Canterbury rider
Paul Burton. Collector
Speedway star
West ham programs 1964\65

Dave Ramsden has sent these 2 pictures which show a big single cylinder Royal Enfield engine and also unusually mounted handlebars. The bike looks pretty handy though. Wonder how it went?

Bikes Page 5

1981 Godden Mk2