The Vincent Owners Club announce a quarter-mile sprint at Shakey! Entries Welcome...
The Coventry Section of the Vincent Owners Club has set aside a day in their busy 2016 calendar for a special Vincent day and quarter-mile sprint at Shakespeare County Raceway on 17th April.
Focused on bringing together a collection of famous Vincent machines from the past, the day includes demonstration runs from historic machines, as well as a full blown sprint (organised by the NSA), for machines of all varieties.
Vincent’s have more of a connection to racing events than many a fan of the marque will realise. Vincent ceased to build motorcycles in 1955 but others Vincent engines continued to be used to power other specialist machines such as the beautiful, and often fast Egli’s (see above). Around the same time a few stars of sprinting world began to shoehorn these strong and large capacity motors into what later became very successful machines.
George Brown, one of Sprinting's all time greats, was famous for his 1000cc Vincent ‘Nero’ and its later 1500cc supercharged sibling ‘Super Nero’. A National and World Record holder in the mid-nineteen sixties, George was not long followed by the gentleman racer and respected tuner Maurice Brierley, who took two incarnations of his Methamon sidecar Drag racer to further success.
By the 1970’s the Vincent connection to drag racing was taken a step further
Well known racers Brian Chapman and Derek Chinn each took the formula several steps further by building ‘giant killing’ machines that were both small and fast!
Brian built his 500cc Vincent Comet powered ‘Mighty Mouse’ (and it’s later stablemate the 1100cc supercharged Vee Twin ‘Super Mouse’) and one of Derek’s famous ‘Pegasus’ racers was Vincent powered.
Brian Chapman will perform fire-up’s in the pits! It’s an experience not to miss - See HERE for a taster...
Some are no longer campaigned, but remarkably all of these historic and important machines survive. Furthermore, several of them will be at the event at the former Long Marsden Airfield in April! For example, Chris Illman will be piloting the supercharged “Methamon”.
He will be joined by Tim Kingham bringing along one or two of his racing Vincents, Roland Mettam with his 1020cc 100 bhp MogVin (three-wheeler special originally built by Roy Ward), record holder John Renwick and Chris Chant with his HRD TTR.
Also coming to display and perform fire-ups in the pits is Brian Chapman who’ll be bringing along both ‘Super’ and ‘Mighty’ Mouse machines. The last ever Vincent to race in anger down the Long Marston quarter mile in 1981, at 9.01 seconds for the quarter!
The line up for the April event is increasing by the day but there are still spaces for those wishing to come along.
Those wishing to enter can turn up on the day with an ordinary road licence and pay £25.
Vincent competition machines should however contact Coventry Vincent Owners Club (details below) in advance, so as to be place correctly in the demo run slot.
Futher information about how to enter can be found on the Coventry Section of the Vincent Owners Club website at www.coventryvoc.co.uk (Select the calendar and open Vincents at Shakespear County Raceway) and on the Shakespeare County Raceway website news page: www.shakespearecountyraceway.com/newsdetails.asp?news=913
The VMCC Sprint Section will once again be organising the motorcycle side of things by kind invitation of our long standing friends and the event organisers, The Brighton and Hove Motor Club.
“ Saturday 7th September 2019 sees the yet another running of this iconic event, the current format being a standing-start ¼ mile sprint along Brighton seafront’s Madeira Drive...”
The VMCC Sprint Section has been running the bikes at Brighton since the section was formed in the early 1980s, however the section’s founders were running the bikes from the very early 1970’s, namely Len Cole and Phil Manzano followed by Paul, Pat & Jayne Standing.
2019 Brighton Speed Trials
So, to the event - Up to 200 cars and 75 motorcycles will take part during the day, and it’s not unusual to have a mix of bikes entered from the 1920’s right up to current day, and when we say “entered”, the bikes in the paddock are the bikes that are given the beans along the seafront!
Spectator entry includes a free programme and access to the paddock area, so not only can the variety of machines be seen at close quarters, the riders / drivers / mechanics can be chatted to if you want to know some detail about the machinery, plus spectators will be able to follow competitors’ progress live through the whole of the quarter mile sprint via a 21sq metre LCD screen.
Advance tickets have a 20% reduction! Details on the Brighton & Hove Motor Club website (see link below).
Frosts Cars Ltd of Brighton are the main sponsor for yet another year, and we thank for them for continuing to support this historic event. Thanks are also in order for the marshals, medics and behind-the-scene teams.
So, if you fancy a day at the sea-side and at the same time don’t mind seeing cars and bikes in competition (the fastest bikes can reach over 175mph), the annual Brighton Speed Trials could be worth a visit...........