Introduction

Exmoor beast said:
I have ridden  Enduro, Trials, Speedway and mechanic at the TT and Motocross and without a shadow of doubt Grasstrack people are the best, no bull, no politics friendly bunch.I raced from Shropshire down to Cornwall in an era when I could be on the start line with up to 8 -KH750,TZ750, Weslake /Godden/HedlundVtwin, Nourish /Yamaha 270?, Yamaha Exup, Z1000 ( some rephrased as 180?), Laverda, HondaV4 and I even rode an EML Jumbo 880 two stroke ( 2xMaico 440 ) Sidecar.
I rode a Jawa897 down my road one evening, the unshielded spark  turned everyone?s TV into an oscilloscope showing my advance curve- which I?m sure the appreciated!
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hi don't suppose you remember the Brereton bros they used weslake and won the uk championship a few times in the seventies. Great people and good times.
Regards Andy 😁
 
there were successful grass track sidecars a long, long while ago, Gerry Adams (no not Jerry Adams) was one of them, and he bought the outfit from its builder (cant recall the name) he was sponsored a fair bit by Mr Todd and also Chris Atkinson, built another, both are local blokes to me, and I was involved, the main problem was the clutch, since it couldn't take more than about three starts and it was duff, a problem that never got solved, but could perhaps be overcome these days with Red's Kevlar plates?, I bought the residues from Chris's exploits after a blow up and included in it was an undamaged WORKS race head, complete with welded in double bolt boss left and right near the spark plugs as on the original space frames, (but not used in either of the sidecars) very exciting that was, but unfortunately it had been planed to give monster compression to suit the dope/petrol mix so could not be used again on stock fuel, or so I thought at the time, so I sold it on, big mistake! a few years later both of them said that my own solid copper head gaskets would have been a boon at the time, no wonder they were looking for 14:1
CLEM
 
The most terrifying and exhilarating 25 minutes of my life were spent in the chair of a grasstrack outfit. Tim Wall was in charge of the throttle. I was a mate of his son Keith Wall who I did a bit of cycle speedway with. I tried to copy the guys in the chairs by hanging out wide and low, but my overriding memory is of how many big looking rocks seemed to be hitting me, hard, bouncing off my helmet and pretty much battering me all over. I can't remember the bike, but it had an extremely angry 4 cyl jap motor. Fast as fuck. Hot, raw, smelling of exotic fuel and oil. Pure magic.

I agree, a fantastic sport full of open and friendly folk.  Real men, it seemed to me, back in the day.  My balls were somewhat on the small side to ever go out again.
 
Keith passengered for me at a practice day pre season on my new Wasp, he was thrown off and fractured his neck. I phoned his asking how he was getting on with his injury and he told me he was in a neck brace, I was horrified until he told me he took it off for work ! Very good passenger, mind.
The best passenger I ever had was Trevor Hopkinson who went on to be twice runner up in world Formula 1 sidecars with Rolf Steinhausen.
 
You want cool story- Matchams park , essentially a 700yard  speedway track with an inner and outer wall making it very exciting to say the least .I used to go to a speedway school run by ex riders . Vaclav Verner was king around there and was helping me with gearing, changing all my primary ratios. He could start my 500 4 valve Jawa by leaning bike over onto footrest, back the wheel over compression then throw the wheel over by hand and grabbing the throttle in one fluid motion!
  He would then go flat out down the straight running well wide then Chuck the bike sideways really early with the rear tyre juddering against the wall ( it used to leave black half moons in the same spot) with the bike almost laying down. The stadium used to echo terribly but to hear Vacs engine maxing out ,droning all the way round ,never fluctuating was absolutely incredible. Complete mastery , ultimate commitment flat out.
He was a star but would give his time up to help me, can?t see many top sportsman doing that these days.
 
I remember doing a School week with Ivan Majors. Come race day, we had a surprise guest turn up. Oli Olsen. He was there to catch up with Ivan, Ivan suggested he go out onto the track for old times sake prior to the racing.

Oli said no, being of a Speedway bike for two years. But Ivan insisted. Oli geared up and went out a borrowed bike, a GM lay down engined bike, the first we had seen.

He carved up the track, wheeling through two and four, by the third lap he broke the 440Mt track record and came into the pits after six laps. There was a standing round of applause in the pits, he pulled the lanyard, fell on the ground and screamed out ?I am now fucked?
 
Love these wild tales!! Total bloody loonies the lot o you!  :D

I've actually had at least one dream where I'm on the SF on a suburban footy oval with the arse end totally hung out in a feet up full-lock slide. Kinda like a flying dream!
 
Exmoor beast said:
You want cool story- Matchams park , essentially a 700yard  speedway track with an inner and outer wall making it very exciting to say the least .I used to go to a speedway school run by ex riders . Vaclav Verner was king around there and was helping me with gearing, changing all my primary ratios. He could start my 500 4 valve Jawa by leaning bike over onto footrest, back the wheel over compression then throw the wheel over by hand and grabbing the throttle in one fluid motion!
  He would then go flat out down the straight running well wide then Chuck the bike sideways really early with the rear tyre juddering against the wall ( it used to leave black half moons in the same spot) with the bike almost laying down. The stadium used to echo terribly but to hear Vacs engine maxing out ,droning all the way round ,never fluctuating was absolutely incredible. Complete mastery , ultimate commitment flat out.
He was a star but would give his time up to help me, can?t see many top sportsman doing that these days.
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https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26111/lot/445/?category=list

Some great stuff in the next Bonhams auction.
 
Such an incredible contrast in moto design - compare that Jawa to a modern day electrotech superbike or MotoGP bike - pared back, absolute minimalism!
 
"Somerset" WHERE - What Country - Just wish you Guy's and Gal's would say what country. We got Somersets in Canada.

Don't think your all Hi and Mighty and that your the ONLY !!!!!

Canadians also ride Breganzie Laverda's ;o)

Somerset is a community just south of Winnipeg (Grain Elevators), which did have one of the best import Dealerships for Breganzie motorcycles back in the day and believe Winnipeg is still a valuable Breganzie strong hold.

When I retired from Motorcycles at 71, an Italian chap from Winnipeg bought my last motorcycle that is all my Breganzie stock including my 750 SFO for a fair price, I'm a Leprechaun from Norther Ontario - Go figure.

Just saying there are a lot of Breganzie owners out there are just plain turned off with the attitude this forum reeks with.
 
All I'm asking is that members identify the country your from before posting because it causes undue confusion in this forum. The city means nothing on a world forum ;o)
 
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