Whakatane Riders At Motor Cycle Meet At Wanganui

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 13, 29 October 1948, Page 5

Whakatane Riders At Motor Cycle Meet At Wanganui

Three competitors and several parties of enthusiasts from the Bay of Plenty Motor Cycle' Club visited Wanganui during the week-end for the motor cycle sports carnival. The weather on Sunday was fine, but a strong wind made conditions unpleasant when the main events, the road races, were held on the Brunswick Hill course.

Each lap was of seven miles and included many sharp corners and bends and apart from the long straight where speeds of over 110 m.p.h. were reached, high speeds were not obtainable.

The first race, the Clubman’s, was won by E. Erickson who got away to a good start and was never headed, although West of Palmerston, on a fast Vincent H.R.D. threaded his way through the field of 30 riders to take third place. ,A. Marsh, of Whakatane, on his new Triumph Tiger, rode well in this, his first start in a big event. He began from 14th position and finished 7th—a very fine performance.

The Junior and Senior races were run in conjunction, the Junior machines being despatched 30 seconds behind the Senior ones on their 105mile journey. After the field settled down, Rod Coleman, ’riding an M.S.S. Velocette which has been “hotted up” by his father, Percy Coleman, was leading J. Herd of Auckland on the “Works” Velocette by 100 yards. Then there was a gap of mile to the bunch headed by Dixie Dean and Digger Hallan, who were having a great duel. What Hallan made up in the 7 straight Dean picked up by his superior cornering. Hallan eventually had to retire through his crankcase and cylinder head splitting and this left Dean to chase the two leaders alone. Coleman was later forced to pull out as the thread on the drive sprocket nut stripped and shortly after Herd had to stop because the bolts on the rear wheel sprocket broke. Dean was now in the lead and he continued on unchallenged to win easily. Frank Cameron broke a footrest on his. second lap when he had to lie his Norton over to avoid a machine that had crashed in front of him, and this put him out of the race.

Jack Marsh was most unlucky, as during the tenth lap his oil pres-, sure dropped when he was in sixth position and assured of a place. This was an excellent' performance for a rider who was making his debut in road racing. The most noteworthy performance of the day, was that put up by Len Perry who was riding a K.T.T. Velocette. He easily won the Junior machine race and continued to take second place in the Senior event. The finish of the latter would have been very interesting if Perry had not dropped a spark plug when only two laps from the checkered flag. Sid Jensen was unlucky in this race, in that a valve tappet seized on the Velocette on which he won at the recent local hill climb. Results:— Clubman’s Race, 28 miles: E. Erickson, M.A.C. Velocette 1, R. McKinnie, Triumph Tiger 2, E. West, Vincent 11.R.D. 350 3, R. Barnes, 350 B.S.A. 4. Junior Race, 77 -miles: L. Perry, K.T.T. Velocette 1, J. Dale, A.J.S. 2, P. Clarkson, K.T.T. Velocette 3, P. McGhee, Excelsior Manxman 4. Senor Race, 105 miles: D. Dean, Triumph Tiger (lhr 47mins) 1, L. Perry, K.T.T. Velocette (lhr 51 mins) 2, H. McDonald, Ariel Special (lhr 51mins 20secs) 3, B. Gray, International Norton (lhr 51mins 41 secs) 4, P. Clarkson, K.T.T. Velocette- (lhr 52mins) 5, B. Buchanan, 500 Matchless (lhr 52mins 28secs) 6.