Who remembers Moonraker?

Reading the articles recently about the early days of Santa Pod, I wondered if any readers could confirm if my memories are accurate or not.

Myself and a friend attended the venue in the early days and I remember a machine with four Manx Norton engines, mounted one pair of engines behind the other. It was massive and was called Moonraker. The rider lay over the top of the machine and it would stand and be balanced as the rear tyre was really wide. The rider was a slim, quiet person who looked incapable of handling such a machine and I remember feeling admiration of his bottle and courage. We both joined the British Drag Racing Association that day – I still have the badge somewhere – and we started to strip an Austin J2 van down on some waste ground nearby. We got as far as taking the rear axle out with the plan to shorten it, very dragsterish. But that’s as far as it got before we lost interest!

Searching back in our memories, we think that Ian Richardson’s Moonraker used a 2-litre flat four Butterworth Formula 1 engine with four modified Norton heads and we also seem to recall that the engine was a joint venture between Butterworth’s and Kieft Cars, run by the same Cyril Kieft who is mentioned in Vince Sharkey’s letter about Kieft scooters this issue. It was most likely the first drag bike in this country to be fitted with a huge rear tyre, as can be seen in one of the few photos we were able to find of Moonraker. But we would love to know more.