Eiron wrote:

Patrick Turner wrote:

I did like BSA and Matchless and Norton, oh, and Vincent. They made
music.
Especially The Vincent, and at 166MPH on Conrod Straight at Bathurst.

The older you get the faster you were. Let's have some more details.

I didn't ride the Vincent at that speed at Bathurst in about 1965.

But Eric Debenham did.

He was a privateer motorcyclist who at that time owned a stable
of single and twin Vincents.

And he rarely ever bothered finishing a race on the twin, after setting
the lap record several times
with the twin much modded Rapide, and leaving everyone else on crap like
hotted up road bikes by Triumph and Matchless far behind.
He'd claim mechanical problems, and sometimes they were genuine claims,
as occasioanally things did prevent such blistering speed.
He held the outright lap record at Bathurst for years; none of the cars
were faster
until they began to use downforce contouring.

Just outside the NSW town of Bathurst is the Mt Panorama course which is
up around the mountain
and along beside some cow paddocks. Its been used for motor racing for
many years.
http://www.bathurst-nsw.com/MtPanorama.html
In 1966 the main straight was a mile or more long, but because of the
absurd
speeds people began to clock, and a number of horrendous accidents, they
whacked a chicane
in the middle of the straight, so high speeds will ever be seen again.

I saw another great guy, Ron Toombs killed on a Yamaha 350 about that
time, when it seized up
coming down the twisty hill bends before the straight.
He slid along the arm-co fence, and hit a tree headfirst at about 80mph,
and wouldn't have felt nuffink.
Ron also rode what was known as the Henderson Matchless, a modified
derivation of 7R-AJS,
but his had a shorter stroke and 4 valves in the head, OHC, and it
really flew, for a 500, thanks to Hendo's tuning abilities.
But then the japanese bikes were just starting to eclipse the
four strokes and the Yammy 350cc 2 stroke was about as quick as the 500
single.

Bathurst used to be the scene of wild riots and very extreme behaviour
when the bikes raced there. The police often lost.

Hundreds of bikies raged up/down the main street of town,
lotsa argy bargy.

In 1966, when I first went to Bathurst on my Matcho 500 single, and went
for a hamburger in town,
a pale blue Ford Customline pulled up and a big fat cop
asked me to leave town pronto.
"You're makin the town look untidy son.." he drawled.

He wasn't the type who'd smile if I'd replied with
"Well I forgot my tuxedo, and the Rolls is being repaired.."

I could have had a field day in a court, because my dad was a Mayor of
Ku-ringai at the time,
and well connected to good lawyers. But I just left, after buying ther
burger off the
nervous greeks in the milkbar.

I was unaware of the history then, but a few years later on another
visit,
the Hell's angels had a field day win when they had police huddled in
fear of their lives for
what was a "colourful night's activities on the mountain". Sticks of
dynamite
and molotov cocktails were used, and part of the police mountain
compound was torched.

Boys will be boys.

The car racing ppl were all nice and tame....

Patrick Turner.








--
Eiron.