All of the pictures on these pages were taken by readers of
The Acceleration Archive who have kindly agreed to share them with us.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Who is this lucky little girl who had her
picture taken on one of Henk Vink's Big Spender fuel bikes? |
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Regular readers will be aware that Readers' Gallery no. 6 was entirely devoted to pictures contributed by Pat Neal. Pat has kindly sent in two more very interesting shots (above and below right), the captions are his own. |
The first shot is of Ian ("Boris") Ashwell taken in 1967 at Blackpool on his Shorrocks blown nitro Vincent 'Satan'. As many readers will know, Ian was killed at the 1968 Brighton Speed Trials when his fairing bracket broke and locked the steering, losing not only a good bloke but the Blackpool and Ramsgate venues as well. Ian was early drag racers George Brown, Nevill Higgens, and of course John Hobbs, main competition in the sixties as well as the first bike to run under 20 seconds for the standing start kilometre, Satan would run 10.2 - 10.4 seconds for the quarter on a good day on about 25% nitro which was all the ignition of the day would handle. Ian's permanent five o'clock shadow made him look Russian, hence the nickname 'Boris'. His crew chief went only by the name of 'Slippers' because of his penchant for wearing carpet slippers everywhere, even the BDRA prize giving dinner! The shot was taken (I think) by Jim Reynolds and was later used for the cover of LJK Setright's book 'A Twist of the Grip' - long since out of print. |
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This shot is our new race car in our front yard. After 6 years in Formula 2000 with the 2004 Championship under her belt, Linda wanted to try something that didn't beat her up so much, so we sold the road racer and bought this 1989 S&W Super Pro. The car runs a 472" big block Chevy with a Powerglide, 12 bolt rear and runs 8.40s on pump petrol at about 160 mph terminals. Right now it is stripped to the bones for chassis refurbishment, repaint (all black), Brodix heads and adjustable pedals because we are both going to race it. In the future we have a line on an 8/71 with Weind intake and Mallory mag and maybe some alchohol. It's a shorty - 185" - so its going to be lively! |
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This picture of Rod Pallant's LA Hooker Top Fuel Bike receiving a little TLC was sent in by Chris Gordon. |
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The next seven pictures are the work of Mike Daddow. His first picture was taken through the chain link fencing at Santa Pod and shows Bob Webster aboard his mighty 2400cc double Kawasaki-engined machine. |
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Mike's original name for this picture was 'should be in the Tate'. I can't argue with that - it is of course the immaculate Pegasus bike of Derek Chinn and Ian Messenger. If you would like to see it in the flesh it is in the National Motorcycle Museum. |
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Right all you motorcycle historians - who rode this? Pat Neal has identified the bike below right as aerospace engineer Gorden Diggen's twin Morgo Triumph, he knows this because it was his ignition system on the side! The engines were coupled with Ariel Square Four crank gears and they ran as a four. A Z1000 ignition pack was adapted onto the front exhaust cam and 2 Kawasaki 2 pole coils were used to light it, you can see them on the heads. Gorden's son Neil thinks this picture was probably taken at Blackbushe where his dad broke the frame on one run and commented that it was now handling the best it ever did! The bike was sold to a couple of Scandinavians who turned up the doorstep with a wad of cash. |
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CC2 is Mick Butler's 996cc Weslake-powered V-twin which he called Cyclops. |
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Ex-comp altered racer Herb
Andrews confirms that this is indeed the Comet junior dragster of Neil
Roberts. |
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Clive Rooms has identified Frank Brachtvogel as the rider of AC 289 Garthvader which featured two Norton engines with a total displacement of 1720cc, it appeared in 1979. |
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The next two shots were taken by my old
schoolfriend Mike Dawson on one of our trips to the Pod. The picture on the
left shows how the start line looked in the early 1970s before the gantry was
built and the spectator banking was increased in height. |
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The next three pictures were submitted by ex-Competition altered racer Chris Pretty. This is Dave Collis' V8-powered Vauxhall Firenza which he named Frenzy. |
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Chris got his programme for the 1978 September International meeting autographed by Barry Bowles, Gene Snow and the late Sammy Miller. |
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This ex-Paul Rossi Dodge Charger was imported from the USA and was driven by Sylvia Hauser. |
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The remaining pictures on this page were
taken by my fellow Dartford resident Pete Smith. When I first posted some of
Pete's photos I mentioned that he had a street legal blown Corvette, he has now
gone the whole hog and entered it in Street Eliminator - good man! |
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Three shots of the famous Paranoia Comp Altered of Loten & Thomas. This car is currently (2005) owned by Martin Holgate and is receiving a lot of attention in the workshop of Roy Wilding. I hope to be able to publish an article on these modifications at some point. |
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Ron Picardo's Blue Samurai Datsun 240Z-bodied funny car at Santa Pod. |
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This is Slick Willy, Bob West's great looking Willys Coupe competition altered. |
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This is John Mills' massive Roadrunner which I see is running in competition altered. |
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Mick Cheley's great looking Mr Shifter roadster. |
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Eamon Hurley was the only man I can recall who raced a rotary engined bike. It can't have been an unqualified success because he later came out with this Kawasaki-powered bike which he also called Concord. |
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I know that CC 115 belonged to John Manning because it says so on the tank. That was the limit of my knowledge until Ian Preston (who crewed for John) wrote in to say that the bike was called Methatron and was powered by a 900cc Kawasaki engine bored out to 1250cc running nitrous. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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