BORN FOR THE USA
The factory Rob North triples made their racing debut 50 years ago at Daytona. Successes followed later, thanks to a team of top riders and a series of developments
In October 1969 the Triumph factory’s Head of Development, Doug Hele, was entrusted with the task of developing a racing version of the company’s new T150 Trident threecylinder superbike, which had been launched the previous year. The pressure was on, because he had to have six bikes on the grid for the Daytona 200 the following March – just four months away!
Three of the bikes were to be Triumphs, but the other three would be BSAS, to reflect the fiercely competitive rivalry between the two brands in the BSA Group, each of which had its own competition department.
Hele had designed the 741cc inline three-cylinder overheadvalve engine which powered the BSA Rocket 3 and Triumph T150 Trident over the winter of 1963/64, working on a drawing board in his home during his own free time and completely unaided. So the chance to develop a racing version of his motor, and clad it in a full-race chassis to go racing at the highest level, gave him particular satisfaction. The decision to fund a racing programme was the direct result of a rule change in AMA Grand National racing in the USA, the British firm’s largest market. Until 1969 ohv and ohc engines had been restricted to 500cc, while sidevalves (ie Harley-davidsons) could be 750cc. It wasn’t until 1970 that the AMA removed this restriction for road racing, which gave the British triples a competitive edge Stateside.
The British factory concentrated on developing the three-cylinder engines, and delegated construction of racing frames to specialist fabricator Robin ‘Rob’ North, whose shop was just ten miles from the Meriden factory (see Rob North interview on page 34).
He had already built frames for Triumph tester Percy Tait, including one with a three-cylinder motor. This formed the basis of the six factory triples for Daytona, with the Triumphs all ridden by Americans (Gene Romero, Don Castro and Gary Nixon) and three BSAS for Dave Aldana, Jim Rice and the legendary Mike Hailwood, coaxed back from cars to bikes via a large cheque, for what he declared would be his last-ever bike race.
After leading the race, Hailwood retired at onequarter distance with a broken valve stem tip in
‘AN AMA RULE CHANGE PROMPTED THE TRIPLE RACING PROGRAMME’
his BSA’S engine, leaving Nixon to lead until his engine also failed. The race was won by veteran Dick Mann on a Honda 750-4, with Romero a close second after crashing and remounting, and his team-mate Castro third. Romero duly won the AMA title, with Bsa/triumph riders filling the top five championship places.
The debut victory for the Rob North-framed bikes came at Talladega the week after Daytona, when Aldana rode his BSA to victory on the banked Alabama track at what was then the fastest ever average speed for a 200-mile race of 104.59mph, including pit stops. Nixon won at tight and twisty Loudon on his Triumph in front of a massive crowd – the sight, and especially the sound, of the British triples with their haunting howl, was an undoubted crowd-pleaser.
In the UK, Triumph’s Paul Smart smashed the Crystal Palace outright lap record to score the first of many British
Bsa/triumph short-circuit race victories. Later in the year he teamed up with Tom Dickie to win the Bol d’or 24-hour race at Monthléry on the ex-tait triple, the first time any Brits had won the French classic. The following season, BSA/ Triumph went large, upping their racing budget to a massive million dollars in a display of excessive spending which motorcycle racing had not previously seen. After shakedown races in South Africa, no less than ten of the so-called ‘Beezumph’ triples took to the track at Daytona, including an improved 1971 version with a lowered Rob North frame for the previous year’s race winner, Dick Mann.
Hailwood, enticed back again via the usual means, was assigned a likewise-updated BSA, with similar machines under the Triumph label for Daytona debutant Paul Smart
‘FOR 1971 THE BUDGET WAS UPPED TO ONE MILLION DOLLARS’
and AMA champion Romero. Triumphs of 1970-spec were provided to Nixon (racing with a leg broken just days earlier), Castro and team newcomer Tom Rockwood, with year-old BSAS for Aldana, Rice and Don Emde. Winter development had produced a ‘squish’ motor with extra horsepower, as well as the altered Rob North frames and improved aerodynamics thanks to the distinctive ‘Letterbox’ fairing, with the oil cooler now mounted ahead of the steering head. These quickly became known as ‘Lowboys’, with the older frames now nicknamed ‘Highboys’.
The British triples dominated from the start of the event, with Paul Smart qualifying on pole. He and Hailwood were running squish motors, and pulled clear of the field
until both of them retired with ignition-related issues. This left Mann to repeat his 1970 victory – this time on a BSA – in a dominant 1-2-3 sweep for the British bikes, with Romero second for Triumph (like Mann, on a ’71 Lowboy) and Emde finishing third on an older BSA Highboy. It was a dream year for Bsa/triumph, with Mann going on to win the AMA championship, while on the UK mainland Bsa-mounted John Cooper defeated serial world champion Giacomo Agostini on his 500-3 MV Agusta to win Mallory Park’s Race of the Year, repeating the achievement one week later in the Race of the South at Brands. Cooper then won the lucrative Ontario 250-miler in California (consisting of two 125-mile races), while Tait and Pickrell teamed up to repeat Triumph’s 1970 victory in the 24-hour Bol d’or endurance race at Le Mans.
Sadly, though, the victory champagne was a final drink in the last-chance saloon. The BSA Group had losses amounting to £8.5 million in 1971 – £3 million alone for BSA motorcycles. It was sold to Norton owners Manganese Bronze to create Norton Villiers Triumph, which itself lasted barely another three years.
By 1975 it was all over – but by then the Bsa/triumph racing triples had already been sidelined, with the FIM’S Formula 750 category being dominated by Japanese twostrokes. The day of pushrod triples – and other four-strokes – was done. It had been fun and frantic while it lasted.
Want to hear the glorious three-cylinder howl of BSA/ Triumph racing machines. Go to this year’s VMCC Mallory Park Festival of 1000 bikes on July 11-12, where there will be a special parade of 50 BSA Triumph racing triples. That sound send the noise meter of the scale!