Hi John,
In a way it was a great meet for Vincents. There were four in attendance and three achieved records!
First was the 'Vincent Vikings' with a genuine Black Lighning recently rebuilt from a 'basketcase' out of Denmark. Average speed about 110mph.
Second was Marty Dickerson. At 81years young and through the fantastic generosity of Steve Hamel he set a new record, but in shades of the Burns and Wright failed attempt, he had to do the whole thing twice, since his first return run was timed at 87mph although everyone could clearly see he was exceeding 150mph, no amount of protestation could convince the organisers that something was wrong, so he went straight back to do it again but was then stopped by high winds. Undaunted he was out the next morning ready for a 7.00am start and completed the two record runs. The stuff of legends!
Thirdly, Don Angel ran the liner at 221mph down and 213 return to create a new record in class, although somewhat disappointing because the liner was plagued with handling problems all week but otherwise ran reliably and strong except for the major disadvantage of losing the first and second of it's three gears and having to go from zero to 221 on a single gear!
Lastly, and most unfortunate, Terry Prince brought his Australian record holding outfit all the way from Oz only to suffer a problem on the start line which he failed to fix. His bike is fitted with fuel injection and programmable electronic ignition but I don't think he had his computer 'boffin' with him, so was unable to do muck. A great shame since I expect he could easily have lifted a sidecar record as well.
Congratulations to all concerned.
Bill