Roadholder 364 - April 2018

12 Milky Quayle was explaining the complexities of the TT Mountain Course to an astonished James May, formerly from Top Gear, who was about to complete the first lap on a Meccano- built sidecar machine. Milky should know, not only from his own expertise in the MGP, but through the school for novices to the 'Mountain' that he runs each year. 242 corners, with 70 named bends, mostly named after riders who had come to grief there. According to Milky, nowadays it takes four years to learn the course with an apprenticeship in the Novice MGP, MGP, TT and Classics. So what of the riders who somehow skipped this progress? Geoff Duke springs to mind. Not only was he leading his first race in the Island, but only a split oil tank forced him to retire. He was faster on this first race, yes the first time he had ever ridden on a closed race circuit, with oil spewing onto his rear tyre, than the aces like Phil Heath. There must be others who have emanated this feat, but the only rider that I can think of was Paddy H. Reid in the MGP of 1972/3. Paddy was serving in the RAF at the time, and a member of the RAF MSA team. A previous tour in Singapore had set him up with a decent Yamaha and, outings in the Macao and Singapore GPs had shown that he had lost little of the talent that he had shown since purchasing the ex-Minter Cotton Conquest in 1968. Unfortunately this iconic machine went missing in Singapore in 1970 - or Paddy had forgotten the name of the buyer - and it was last rumoured to be in Australia. Paddy's first ride in the island was the MGP Lightweight in 1972, when he finished 8th at 91.47mph, with no previous experience of the course. (Geoff Duke had lapped at 86.03mph). He was awarded the Newcomers' award (there were no separate Newcomers' races in those days). In 1973, he came second in the Lightweight to another RAF MSA rider, Dave Arnold, before winning the Senior MGP at an average of 96.39mph and some three minutes ahead of the runner-up. His last lap was at 99mph and he admitted to 'touring in' after his last pit signal, so he certainly had newcomer aces Bill Southcombe josh brookes and john mcguinness to ride for norton 2018 Norton have signed John McGuinness to race the 2018 TT. This, coupled with their extension of Josh Brookes' riding contract, gives Norton a very strong team for the 2018 TT. Norton has also retained Steve Plater and Mick Grant as development riders. Josh and John will be racing two Norton SG7 bikes; these are derived from the road- going V4 platform. Norton have been pushing on with the V4 development around the engine and it has become clear that the team have designed and engineered a quite remarkable motorcycle: a very pure race bike that has not been done in the UK, for 30 years or more. As Norton are going through the stages of development and refinement on the engine, it has become obvious they need a very high level experience to ensure they get the maximum out of the bike and its engineering. To this end, Stuart Garner, and the engineering team, led by Simon Skinner, have formed an agreement with Suter Engineering from Zurich, Switzerland. Mr Eskil Suter, the company owner, is the famed Moto GP engineer who is pretty well the 'go to' character within the Moto GP paddock for all engineering issues at that level. Eskil and Stuart Garner have discussed at length how to refine the engine/electronic package and Eskil has taken personal responsibility over ensuring the Norton V4 reaches its absolute potential and will be using all of his experience and knowledge to perfect the bike. Having discussed the work Eskil is doing at some length, Norton are building production planning for May deliveries. The weld/fabrication shop are already manufacturing frames and swinging arms; many frames and chassis components are already complete. Stuart Garner stated that it would be wrong to panic and deliver machines that are not quite ready, when they are able to work with the recognised world- leader in Eskil, and ensure they get the very best bike they can. Norton Motorcycles Ltd.