Central Club heyday

We recently ordered a two year subscription to OBA and were pleased to read the article in OBA 47 on the 1954 Redex Trial with photos of Keith Stewart and Roy Dungate being the first and second place finishers. These two riders were long time members of Central Motorcycle Club which commenced in 1937. The photo (above) is of my husband Alan Batkin at his first race day in 1969 at Arcadia Short Circuit track in northern Sydney. It was a Central MCC club day and the bike is a 350cc AJS. He went on to become Club President and also was made a life member of the club. We had wonderful times through those competition years and are now enjoying involvement with vintage motorcycling and reading Old Bike magazine. Mrs Sharon Batkin Concord, NSW We have each done many laps since we last communicated and I thought it timely that I should bring you up to date on my progress heading towards the chequered flag. I am well into my 89th lap and am struggling with an underperforming engine. It no longer revs out and needs a complete rebuild. That, of course, is not possible being such an old model with no spares available, so I have to accept what’s left. A complete strip down recently revealed a worn out bottom half. The connecting rod had a nasty bend in it and nothing I could do would straighten it. The big end is sloppy and has lost 95 per cent of its function. Another unusual thing is that the engine has developed some spontaneous backfiring which happens without notice. It is of little concern to me but seems to have a surprising effect on others. We put it down to a polluted mixture so have consulted with a number of fuel experts who have made several suggestions about fuel additives twice a day which should help control the problem. Not much luck this far – still backfiring. I had a long pit stop on my 88th lap when we found a corrosion problem at the bottom end of the main frame, near the exhaust port. It needed a specialist engineer to remove the corrosion and reinforce the repair with a metal plate. Everything is fine now and I am back in the event for the time being. My long time pit-aid of 61 years is becoming