Roadholder 370 - October 2018

16 scams are not new S. Rogers I 'd read this story told by Charles Mortimer Snr. in his book 'Brooklands and Beyond' some years ago and never forgot it but it was not until recently, when I purchased a copy of my own, at the October Stafford Bike Show, that I had my own book to refer to. Charles related the fact that in the early 1930s, his customers were going to Brooklands and wanting to race their new OHC Nortons. He said that he could see how the knowledge they had gained there could be made to be profitable, so the following scheme was devised. The owner/rider of the new racing Norton would come down to the track for the first run and circulate, but would immediately be disappointed with the lap speed of his new machine, so would they have a look at it to see if could be made faster? Yes, they could, and this was how they achieved it: The rider must do a timed flat-out lap on his Norton, say 88-90mph, so this was the starting point generally if the owner was an inexperienced rider. But any one of their circle of top riders could have done a faster lap on that bike as it stood. Even though the rookie rider could have been flat-out all the way around the speed bowl, experience showed that the fastest line altered day to day according to wind conditions, so thereby using the wind in order to get the best lap speeds on any particular day. In this case, they didn't want too high a lap speed initially because their charge was £1 per mph increase in lap speed so, if their rider attained 98mph, then they earned £10 for about two hours' work, which was a princely hourly rate of pay in 1935. They had to indulge in quite a bit of camouflage to achieve this by having the motorcycle in their workshop for about a week to complete the unbeknown two hours' work. Normally all they had to do was to move the vernier peg three positions to obtain the best timing for an OHC Norton with a Brooklands can silencer fitted. When it was ready and the great day dawned for the new test, one of their team of top riders, not the owner, would ride it. While he timed it, via the vernier peg, they could sometimes squeeze the last drop out of the lemon, particularly if the wind directions were favourable for a fast lap. This little gimmick became a miniature money spin-off because the cammy Norton was such an excellent bike that everyone who wanted a quick racer, was buying. One bonus was when their customers set off with their (specially tuned) OHC Nortons to compete in the IOM with open pipes, they still proved faster than the standard motorcycle as supplied by Bracebridge Street that was already dyno tested to a minimum bhp figure, yet just as reliable. It seems incredible now that such was the state of racing at the time, that the owners themselves never thought of doing such experiments with their engines or, for that matter, the Norton experimental department hadn't got around to issuing special instructions for revised timings for the use of the Brooklands can. A few years later, the factory certainly did, because engines were seen being run on the Hennan and Froude dynamometer, fitted with 'Brookies' but by that time, they had made their small fortune without too much effort. This lucrative scheme rather backfired when owners of Rudges, Velos and Ariels etc. would ask for their engines to be 'breathed on', because nothing else had, as standard, the magnificent vernier bevel and cam adjustment. Thereafter, they had to be too busy to take on extra work, especially if the bike was going exceptionally well. Was this a Vintage scam or just a shrewd money-maker in the nicest possible way?