Today in motorcycle history, April 22, 1973

    


  

  Finland's Jarno Saarinen rides the first YZR500 to victory over Phil Read and his MV Augusta at the 1973 French Grand Prix.

  The 1973 French Grand Prix was the opening round of the GP series held at the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet, near Marseille, France.  For Yamaha this race would mark its first ever GP challenge in the 500cc class.  The hand-picked riders who would mount the new Yamaha machine that had been developed under the OW20 code name were the previous year’s 250cc class champion on a TZ250 Yamaha prototype Jarno Saarinen of Finland and Japan’s Hideo Kanaya. 

   At last, Saarinen was ready to challenge Giacomo Agostini and Phil Read in the 500cc class with competitive equipment.


   Saarinen would ride the first YZR500 to victory over the 20-lap, 72 mile course in a time of 45.57 to beat rival Phil Read on the MV Agusta four-stroke machine by a full 16-second margin.  Kanaya followed in third place.  In the second round of the series at the rainy Circuit Saltzburg in Germany, Saarinen and Kanaya would finish one-two, and in doing so it brought with it the start of a new era in GP racing.



  The strength of the two-stroke Yamaha machine ended the domination of the four-stroke MV Agusta in the GP500 class.  At the time, some 20 different makes of 500cc machines were competing in the class, including Konig, Husqvarna, Ducati, Bultaco, BMW, Norton and Triumph, but up to that point none could stop the winning streak of MV Agusta.

   Tragically, one month later, on May 20, 1973, Jarno Saarinen would be involved in a controversial crash in the Italian Grand Prix that would claim the lives of Jarno and Italy's Renzo Pasolini. 

Today in motorcycle history, April 21, 1890

  

 

  


 

  World record holding motorcycle and automobile manufacturer, racer, showman and perfectionist, George Brough is born at 10 Mandalay Street, Basford, Nottingham, England.  

  The second son of the motorcycle pioneer William Edward Brough who had been building motorcycles at his Nottingham factory since the 1890's.  It was assumed that George and his brother would help develop their father's business, but this son loved both beauty and speed and wanted to incorporate them into high-performance motorcycles.  His father was not of the same mindset, however.  In 1919 George set up his own factory nearby at Haydn Road in Nottingham to produce what he would call Brough Superior motorcycles.  Superior in design, looks and performance.  And, by George, his motorcycles lived up to the claim as he brought together the best components he could find and added his own distinctive styling. 

  Brough Superior's were the first "custom bike".  All built to the customers' requirements. Each bike was assembled twice. Twice. The first assembly was for fitting of all the components, then the bike was disassembled and all parts were painted or plated, then reassembled.  Then every motorcycle was test ridden to ensure that it performed up to spec, and then was certified by George Brough himself. The SS100 model was ridden at 100 mph or more prior to delivery. The SS80 model was ridden at 80 mph or more before delivery. If any motorcycle did not meet specification, it was returned to the shop and reworked until it performed properly.  100% customer satisfaction.

  Brough Superior facts you might be interested in (they can be retold in a bar setting to impress).  Sir William Lyons (aka "Mr. Jaguar") owned an SS100,  George Bernard Shaw had an SS80 and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) owned seven of them.  Sadly, he was killed after an accident while riding his SS100 in Dorset near his cottage, Clouds Hill.



  In 1928, George Brough recorded a speed of 130.61 mph at Arpajon, unofficially the world's fastest speed on a solo motorcycle at the time.

  They were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles" by H. D. Teague of The Motor Cycle newspaper. 

  Approximately 3,048 examples of 19 models were made in 21 years of production.

 

Today in motorcycle history, April 18, 1934

  

      

   

  Speedway racing comes to New Cross Stadium on April 18, 1934, when promoter Fred Mockford relocates his Crystal Palace team in the new stadium at Hornshay Street, just off the Old Kent Road.  New Cross beats West Ham 32-21 in a National League match before a rambunctious Wednesday night crowd of over 14,000.

   New Cross entertained the "Wednesday Nighters" when riders such as Ron Johnson, George Newton, "American Ace" Jack Milne and Tommy Farndon tore up the 262 yard track (it was lengthened to 278 yards when it was reopened in 1959).  Jack Milne lost his right thumb in 1937 and while recovering practiced a new-style throttle control on his hospital bed rail.  Once out of the hospital he carried on as good as ever even finishing the season as the new World Champion, taking the title from the Australian Lionel van Praag.


  The Stadium was home of the National League Speedway Champions in 1938 & 1948 and also to winners of the London Cup in 1934, 1937 and again in 1947.

  The New Cross Rangers Speedway team operated from 1937 until their closure in 1953.  New Cross were originally known as the New Cross Lambs from 1934 to 1935 and then the New Cross Tamers in 1936. 


  The track was often referred to as 'The Frying Pan'. It was built inside the greyhound track and had banking all the way round.




   New Cross Stadium was used as a film set for some of the action and crowd scenes for the film "Once a Jolly Swagman" which starred Dirk Bogarde.

Today in motorcycle history, April 17, 1958

  

  

      

  

  One of the greatest motorcycle riders of his time, if not all-time, Paul "Dare Devil" Derkum dies at 78.








  Born on July 2, 1881, he had the need for speed even as a youngster. By the time he reached his teens, he had already been racing bicycles nationally for two years.  Motorcycles were just a natural progression.

  Indian was the bike of choice for many of the early racers, but Paul J.C. Derkum literally made his name on a 1908 Indian twin.  On February 22, 1908, Derkum broke ten speed records at a one-mile dirt track in Los Angeles—clicking off the fastest time ever for a flying mile, two miles, three miles and so on up to ten miles!

  His achievements were chronicled in the California newspapers, with one Los Angeles reporter dubbing him “Dare Devil Derkum,” a name that stuck throughout his racing career.

  The following excerpt is from the Los Angeles Herald, July 27, 1909.....

  On July 20, 1909, at 11:15 a.m. Paul “Daredevil” Derkum
checked in at Temecula during a timed 320 mile roundtrip race
between Los Angeles and San Diego.  He was determined to lower J. Howard Shafer’s June 30, 1909 record of 16 hours and 50 minutes.  In a cloud of dust, Derkum raced his Indian north out of town and into the record books.  His finishing time was 10 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds.
  

  Everyone wondered if J. Howard Shafer could break
Derkum’s record and reclaim the title.  On July 26, 1909, at 5:00a.m. Shafer revved up his two-cylinder Thor motorcycle at the Los Angeles Herald office on First and Broadway.  Shafer was confident that he could make the run in ten hours flat. However, at 12:20 p.m., he returned to the newspaper office failing to set a new record.

  “Shafer, who went as far as Santa Ana, was met by a
large brown hen at that city and in the mix-up which followed,
Shafer, the hen and the motorcycle precipitated into a nearby
ditch with the result that Derkum's record is still unsullied and
that Shafer returned with a badly battered up machine and a
whole handful of chicken chicken feathers as the result of his effort.”






  Somehow or another Paul J.C. Derkum is NOT in the AMA Hall of Fame.

Today in motorcycle history, April 11, 2011

    

  

  

  One more thing to add to your "bucket-list", Motorcyclepedia motorcycle museum opens in Newburgh, New York.

  Gerald A. Doering bought his first bike, a 1929 Indian Scout in 1947.  Hoping to get a job at a motorcycle dealership that moved from Newburgh, New York to Florida,  Doering rode his 1929 Indian to Florida.  When the job didn’t pan out, he rode that same Indian back to Newburgh.

 

  Gerald Doering than began to collect Indian motorcycles, and over the years, collected Indians from every year of their manufacture, 1901-1953.  His passion for collecting motorcycles was shared with his son, Ted, and in 1971, the father and son team started an after-market motorcycle parts business, V-Twin Manufacturing, in New Windsor, New York.  The success of the company made it possible for the father and son to expand their motorcycle and memorabilia collection and in 2010, Ted began putting together what is now an 85,000 sq. ft. museum in Newburgh.



  Their collection now spans well over 400 motorcycles, ranging from Indians, Harleys, Military and Police models, choppers, vintage hill-climbers, classic British and Japanese bikes, and from America's glory days of motorcycle manufacturing, machines such as Thor, Cleveland, Flying Merkel, Pierce and Reading Standard, to name but a few.

   The museum’s Indian Room features the world’s most complete Indian Timeline.

Today in motorcycle history, April 14, 1938

  


  


  

  The new BSA 249cc "with coil ignition" is road-tested and reviewed in the British newspaper, The Motor Cycle, issue #1,827, Volume 60, April 14th, 1938.

 The final verdict on the 249cc?  "The new BSA is a simple yet lively lightweight, well made and endowed with an unusual range of performance."

  If you're lucky enough to find a copy (Ebay? Grampa's locked and stowed away trunk?) it also covers the Ariel 250cc single-cylinder and it's 1000cc four-cylinder big brother, "each an example of the most advanced engineering practice." 

  The paper claims that it " covers every phase of the movement and circulates throughout the world".

   England was home to over 80 different makes of motorcycles in the 1930's.

  The first instance of the term "motor cycle" appeared in English in 1894 used in materials promoting machines developed by E.J. Pennington, although Pennington's motorcycles never made it past the prototype stage.

   Excelsior Motor Company started life as a bicycle manufacturing company based in Coventry, England.  They began production of their first motorcycle model in 1896, available for purchase by the public.  The first production motorcycle in the States was the Orient-Aster, built by Charles Metz in 1898 at his factory in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Today in motorcycle history, April 11, 1980

  

  

  The Uniondale Ghost strikes again.

  

  In my painstaking efforts to keep you informed on what happened today in motorcycle history I came across this newspaper article from the "Daily Breeze" (seriously, that's the papers name) in Torrance, California, dated Friday, April 11, 1980. 

  The motorcycle ghost of the Karoo Desert has struck again. The ghost, said to be a woman who died in a motorcycle accident more than 10 years ago near Uniondale, badly frightened Andre Coetzee, 20, who was breezing along the highway on Good Friday.

 

  "I was riding near the Baramdas turnoff (the site of the fatal accident a decade ago) when I felt my hair stand on end inside my crash helmet and someone or something put its arms around my waist from behind. There was something sitting on my bike," the Skaen Coetzee said.

 

  The frightened motorcyclist said he accelerated to 80 mph to get away, but the ghost hit him three times in the helmet to get him to slow down. "The blows were vicious,' he said. When he reached 100 mph, Coetzee said, 'the apparition disappeared."  Coetzee drove to a local cafe for help.

 

  "He could hardly speak when we asked him what had happened. But gradually it dawned on us that the woman ghost had appeared once more," said Jeanetta Meyer, the cafe owner.

 

  There have been several reports in recent years of motorcyclists picking up a blonde woman hitchhiker near Uniondale, only to find that she had vanished from the back seat after a few miles.

  In case you're curious (and who isn't?), Uniondale is a small town in the Little Karoo semi-desert region of the Western Cape Province of South Africa. 

  According to the local media, in stormy weather on Easter weekend of 1968 a young engaged couple had a car accident on the Barandas-Willowmore road (N9) around 10 miles outside of town. The woman, Marie Charlotte Roux, was sleeping in the back seat of their Volkswagen Beetle when her fiancé lost control of the car. The car overturned and she was killed.

  The first reported sighting of a female hitchiking ghost occurred during the Easter weekend of 1973 and since then, on the anniversary of the accident, a butt-load of sightings have been reported. Oddly, they all involve a female hitchhiker who is given a lift and then... 

  If you're looking to buy some new music there is a song available out there called "Bloometjie Gedenk aan My (Oh, My Flower, Remember Me)" by Anton Goosen. 

 

  Hey, Rick, is it any good?  All I can say is it did make the list, "1001 South African Songs You Must Hear Before You Die".  You listen, you decide.