NORMAN’S WISDOM
Norman White was a development rider for Norton and has a keen view on just what Dave Croxford brought to the party. He says: “Before we became John Player I was a development rider at Norton, so I was involved in the actual development of the Commando. I was glad I was as well, as that gave me an insight into the very depths of the bike and the reasons behind everything on it.
“Now with Dave, normally he’d just turn up at the track. Now and again he’d come down to Andover and poke around a bit, but he had no input into the design or the development of the bikes. He just jumped on and rode and that was the difference between Peter Williams and Dave.
“We had a great deal of feedback from Peter, while Dave just jumped on and rode his heart out. Dave was three or four times British Champion and a great rider, a really great rider. One of our very best and sometimes because of this label ‘ Crasher’ people forget how good he actually was.
‘Crasher’ was overstated really anyway, because while he had some spectacular crashes I don’t think he really had any more than anybody else. Perhaps he did? I don’t know. But this reputation for being a crasher, or his nickname ‘Crasher’, came, I think, simply as the words ‘Crasher’ and ‘Croxford’ just went together so well: a way for journalists to make a quick story out of it. Peter fell off too! Perhaps not that often, but he did fall off and I don’t think Dave was any more of a crasher than anyone else at the top level of racing back then in the early 1970s.
“As Colin Seeley said, I don’t think he bent any of his bikes, and it was just the case that with the Norton, when he had one, they tended to be very spectacular. Like at Brands, sliding up the hill on his bum, waving to the crowd as he slid; and Woodcote, Silverstone, where the bike ended up over the fence. I suppose that crash at Woodcote was quite spectacular actually, as we turned that chassis into a lamp stand!”
Norman adds: “How it was at Norton was that Peter did the design side and John Mclaren and Robin Clist pieced the original bikes together, Dave Ludwell and Reg Paynter did the engines, while I maintained Peter’s machine.
“But after Peter’s crash, late in 1974, the thing was Dave didn’t really have a very competitive bike anymore, what with the Cosworth.the Cosworth was almost a folly really, as one of the problems we were up against was that while the bike produced 100hp at the crankshaft – a genuine 100hp, which in those days was quite competitive – the fact was that the engine and gearbox, the entire power unit, weighed 94kgs.
“With the tz350 yamaha, which was one of our competitors in those days, the all up weight of one of those was just 128kg, which gives you some idea of the problem. It was a heavy old lump, as Dennis Poore insisted that it looked like a road bike, as that’s what they wanted to sell: superbikes for the road, with the Cosworth engine in them. But of course, it all fell apart before they got the opportunity.”
Ultimately, it was Norman’s call on what happened with the Cosworth. “I did a lot of testing on it and was the one who closed that programme down. After I’d had some experience on a yamaha tz750 I had a jolly good comparison to work against and it was clear it wasn’t possible to continue. Somewhere there’s a picture of me, testing, going around Paddock Hill Bend with the back wheel about 12 inches off the ground. It was the same old thing that Giacomo Agostini used to have with the MV Agusta 350. He used to lose his back wheel, but nothing like the same way the Cosworth would as there was no flywheel.
“That would have been the end of 1975, but of course what happened was our friend in Scotland who built the Quantel – he was involved with Cosworth actually, on the management side, Bob Graves – he completely redeveloped the engine. Fuel injected it, did away with the balance shafts and everything else and made a lightweight motor instead of the great big heavyweight thing we had. they had a fair amount of success winning the Daytona Battle of The twins race in 1988 with Roger Marshall on. But of course, it wasn’t like that when Dave had it and I just hope this brings across what a good rider Dave was.
“A damn good rider on what in the end, with the Cosworth, was just an uncompetitive machine.”