CLUBMAN’S SUCCESS
In 1951, Triumph riders, Ivan Wicksteed and John Draper were a close second and third but Wicksteed admitted throwing the race away by easing off too much on the last lap, believing he had an unassailable lead. Signals he got at Ramsey with a third of the lap to go appeared to confirm this so, mindful of his 1950 disappointment, he eased his pace over the Mountain. Unfortunately for Wicksteed, Ivor Arber on a Norton put in his fastest lap of the race, lapping in 27m 59.6s despite a spill at Governor’s Bridge hairpin, the final turn before the finish. Wicksteed’s initial standing start lap had actually been three seconds quicker than Arber’s final charge but that was his fastest lap of the race. Relying on signalling he decided to run a controlled race to ensure a victory but his final lap was almost a minute and a half slower than Arber’s. Having thrown away what seemed like certain victory, Ivan was sporting in defeat. “I hope you all see the moral in this,” he said at the prize giving, “don’t try to be too ruddy cunning!” What hurt almost as much, he said, was the fact that by dint of having finished in the top three he was prevented by the Clubman’s regulations from coming back in 1952 for another crack at a race that he could have won in 1950 and should have won in 1951. As a final aside on the 1951 race, the third man home, also on a Triumph, was Johnny Draper – better known as one of Britain’s best scrambles, observed trials and International Six Days Trial enduro riders in the Fifties. He was typical of many ‘all-rounders’ who embraced the true ‘clubman’ spirit of the Clubman’s TT over the years – riders like (to name but two of many) grass track and sprint star, Alf Hagon and 1955 winner, Eddie Dow, who also won gold medals in the ISDT and first class awards in the Scottish Six Days.
“TRIUMPH PUT A COPY OF LYONS’ MACHINE INTO LIMITED PRODUCTION AND CALLED IT THE TRIUMPH GRAND PRIX.”