John Shirt Snr:

“I fully supported Jnr with his decision to move from my two-stroke Yamaha to the four-stroke Honda. When both the drum brake and disc brake Hondas arrived the quality of the components really impressed me. The engine was a different ball game all together. When they arrived they would only do 40mph on full throttle and ran very slow, which was not such a good thing for what we wanted. I fitted a Yamaha TY carburettor as the Honda was supplied with a very small bore one. This improved it and so I fitted a 28mm Ø Dellorto, which worked well and improved the performance no end. I had good knowledge of four-stroke engines from my Speedway days and decided to go and see Guy Allott who lived across the road from me. Guy had looked after the speedway engines of the great riders including Ivan Mauger, Ole Olsen and Peter Collins, to name a few. Basically there was not enough adjustment to make any changes and so we took the camshaft sprocket, which was fixed, off the shaft and made a slot in it to give so much more adjustment. This worked a treat and allowed the engine to rev more open and higher. Along with John Hulme who was on a mono-shock Yamaha we went a ride out on the roads and tracks near Hawk’s Nest; the top speed was now closer to 80mph and it would cruise all day at 70mph. I also rode the RTL in a trial to understand it more. John Jnr was very young when he rode the Honda and he learned so much from the experience. After my Yamaha days had finished I needed a new product and I started to import the Gas Gas trials machines. John Jnr knew I needed this to work in order to secure our future and he moved to them to ride and promote the product; he is still doing it some 30 years on.”