Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The "inverted" Mk.8 KTT...strange name for a blog.....
I'm not into showing motorcycle crashes, but being a Velocette enthusiast, this pic of the unfortunate rider getting off his Mk.8 KTT in such a fashion intrigued me....
Now German Velocette enthusiast and long time friend, Gert boll and I correspond....Gert before he retired was a turbine engineer and was often in Sydney and visited me, and the friendship struck up.
Recently Gert forwarded this photo to me and enquired if I knew who it was.....
The riding number wasn't completely visible and looked like 47 or 49 to me...
Gert felt it was from the 1939 TT due to the description on the back of the pic...see below.
A check of the 1939 IOM TT program showed a few Mk.8 KTT's with numbers in the 40's....
There were no Velocette Mk.8 KTT's with riding numbers in the 40's in the 1939 Senior TT.
The racing number is damaged and partly obliterated and appears to be #47 or #49.
#47 was J.W. "Bill" Beevers
#49 was H.B.Myers
However the tricky bit is Myers came 35th in the Junior TT and Beevers came 27th in the Junior TT.
Myers didn't ride in the Senior and Beevers finished 19th on a Norton in the Senior TT.
Myers did not enter the Senior TT on any motorcycle.
It may have been post WW2....
I don't have TT programs for 1947,48 which would give the riding number and riders name and machine.
However the back of the pic below has a penciled comment “1939”
..Now that looks like one hell of a "get off" and I'd be surprised if it was #47 or #49, that they could re-mount and finish where they came.
Although Meyers, #49 was last place at 35th.
I've re looked at the Stewards report and results, which lists the lap times and Beevers was lapping consistently...33m02;31m18,30m10,29m55;30m32,29m50,29m57.
The first lap was slower as the standing start lap and the 30m32 may have been his re-fuelling lap.
Myers times were..33m14s, 33m34s, 32m08s, 32m12s, 34m20s, 32m24s, 32m36s.
I assume his 33m20s lap, his 5th was also re-fuelling.
Neither look like they encountered such a crash....
#41 J.Garnett was riding a rigid framed Mk.7 KTT, so it wasn't him.
So perhaps it was Frank Fry, riding #45....
His first lap, standing start or not was his fastest, he was as fast as the 11th placeman's first lap...L.G.Martin..29m31s...
Out of interest his lap times were..29m28s, 30m36s, 30m07s, 33m54s then retired, in the 5th lap of the race.....the report in "MotorCycling" says..."F.W Fry ( Velocette) fell at Milnetown Hotel, but that his injuries were not too serious, although the exact nature of the accident was not announced."
Unless it happened in practice, but I believe that riders did not get issued their riding numbers until the weigh in when their bikes were impounded until the race started and used a cloth riding number tied to their backs. This is not there.
No other Velo rider is listed as falling, retiring with a riding number in the 40's.
Short of further information, I’m of the opinion that it was #45 Frank Fry
Thanks to Pete Young for noting the "typo" on the name in the initial post....
Left click on the images to enlarge....
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