Some readers will have noted the comment by George Spence in the May 2012 MPH about the fastest production Vincent at the Blackpool Sprint having a quarter mile time of 14.36 seconds. That was me, at the time about 150 lbs weight. The bike was a carefully put together Shadow with standard carbs, compression ratio etc. but I think MkII cams. I rode the bike up to my family home in Wakefield from Sussex, where I worked, changed the silencer to a ‘straight through’, i.e. a bit of tube welded into a standard silencer body and then followed my brother in his car over the Pennines to Blackpool. I remember going through some of the towns and villages with the throttle well shut and not causing enough noise to cause people to look round. However, opening the throttle was a different matter!! It was my first ever motorcycle competitive event and I won, much to my surprise. Note that this was a more or less standard road bike, fully equipped with lights, dynamo, battery, front and rear stands etc. It is probably typical of what one could expect from a standard twin at the time. It took about two years for me to get the time down to 13.06 seconds by which time there were no stands, nothing in the battery case or dynamo, the compression was up to 10.5:1 and the ‘carbs’ were inch and three eighths Wal Phillips fuel injectors. The bike was still being ridden to meetings and generally the silencer changed at the meeting. As well as the 13.06 time for the standing start quarter the bike also did 135 mph at the end of a half mile sprint at Long Marston. Regarding the number of gear changes, I tried over revving to 7,000 rpm and making just one change or changing gear twice and revving to a more reasonable 6,300 ish. Times were better with the extra gear change and staying within the power band. Rear sprockets were typically 54 or 56 teeth for quarter miles. I had intended to build another bike with oil in the gearbox, a ‘D’UFM and Bramptons to reduce weight but circumstances decreed that I had to buy a house and as those of you who have gone through this will know one is essentially bankrupted and there was no longer the money to go sprinting. It would not have mattered anyway. For year or two I had had the fastest production bike in the country but the next year, Ray Elgar did something to his bike which transformed its performance. If I recall correctly he got down to about 12.3 seconds and I doubt that I would ever have got there. Even allowing for the lighter weight of a Shadow 70 I doubt that the claimed figures could ever have been achieved.