A remarkable and memorable day at Blackbushe
I and a friend were privileged to attend the Blackbushe Drag Fest. We travelled to it on my AJS 18S and we were totally unprepared for the fantastic performances put on that day.
The main car performer of the day at this time was Sydney Allard, driving the ‘Allard Special’. This was a ‘normal’ road car modified for drag racing, running in the low 12-second bracket for the quarter mile. The front runners in the motorcycle class included world record holder George Brown and Neville Higgins, both on roadderived Vincents.
Also in the line-up was an upstart in the drag bike scene. Although a well-known ace grass track racer and innovator, Alfie Hagon was new to the sport and, at this time, was not considered to be a contender. He had the temerity to show up with a machine he had made himself. It must have been about 40kg lighter than the Vincents and was only just over knee high. It had a V-twin JAP engine and raked front forks in front of a spindly frame. The front wheel looked as if it came from a moped and there was only a miniscule front brake. In addition to this, it only had two gears. What an insult! However, it later silenced everyone with a magnificent series of runs.
At this time, press reports coming from the States told of unbelievable times being set at drag meetings there. These were derided by the English press and put down to “short courses” or “slow” timing equipment. However, the performances of the American car drag racer Don Garlits, then unknown to the British public, in his ‘Swamp Rat’ were fantastic. This car had rear wheels about five feet in diameter with tyres that looked as if they’d come off a large tractor – except they were slicks. It had a huge engine and a long spine frame to the front wheels which, in comparison, looked as if they were from a pram. To us it was an incredible thing to look at and it was to change all our concepts of machine structure and elapsed times for sprints forever.
So much for some background to the event. Allard did his runs and was in the low 12-second bracket. Then came Swamp
Rat with everyone waiting in anticipation for this projectile to take off. The lights changed and it took off in a cloud of smoking rubber and tremendous noise – and then it was gone. We were all struck dumb and in the whole area you could have heard a pin drop. We couldn’t believe what we had just heard and seen. For a few seconds it was like this and then suddenly the whole place erupted into huge applause at the spectacle: 8.5 seconds for the quarter! That wasn’t possible, was it? But we had just
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American events!
Next came the bikes and, among the motorcycle spectators, the same thing occurred when Alfie Hagon did his run. Off the line like a rocket with only one gear change, leaving a black tyre mark to halfway up the strip. He achieved the impossible; he beat all the top Vincent men, including George Brown. I think his time was a fraction over 10 seconds.
I am now 85 years old and am still riding a Vincent with a GP sidecar and I’m still enjoying life. But that day stands out for me as one of the most impressive motoring feats I have seen.
Peter Biles, Barnet, Herts