WHAT DID BADGER DO NEXT?
As newly crowned British champion, and with a successful business to look after plus a dicky shoulder to heal, it could be assumed Bryan Goss ditched the scrambles jeans and put on his business suit, or possibly chilled out… errr… no.
First of all he had his shoulder attended to and explained to the doctor who’d advised against racing that he’d incurred the damage “riding round a field”. Then he headed to the Twickenham Club’s 100 Mile Scramble.
A special event with a large prize pot, the event was for teams of two riders. Badger teamed up with Ivan Miller for the event, others were Bryan Wade with Malcolm Davis and Vic Allan and his Greeves team mate Arthur Browning. These riders were the teams which shared the lead back and forth as the event progressed. Some exuberant riding by Badger managed to get him tangled up in a banner which slowed him down so much he had to pull in so Miller could get out on the track while the banner was cut from Goss’s bike.
On a track so fast it resembled a mountain grass track rather than a scramble the lead was taken by Bryan Wade until he pulled in with a mis-fire which turned out to be a broken plug. While this was sorted Vic Allan took the lead only to be injured by a flying stone. Back on the track Goss regained the lead by halfway but then lost it... and his entire exhaust system! The action flowed back and forth in such a fashion as the event played havoc with the machinery.
With two hours of the event gone, and Wade and Miller out on track for their respective teams, Miller pulled in to swap with Goss, but it was short lived as Goss’ exhaust came adrift. Miller had to go back out while this was sorted. Tiring, he couldn’t hold the slightly fresher Wade. Goss went out again… guess what happened to his exhaust pipe… yeah, it broke off! Ivan Miller had little option but go out again, this time he was beset by plug problems but managed to hang in until the finish and the Goss/miller pairing managed 99 laps but Wade/davis did 100… talk about excitement!
The excitement continued later in the press as a revised result put the results the other way round…