Wasp 1000cc enduro sidecar, 1982
This particular machine is the one that took George to his fifth British sidecar enduro championship, won the three day event in Wales and was timed at over 114mph on the 6km main straight across the sand at Le Touquet. By this time George was the master of the French beach race but, as he recalled, the second victory was initially denied him by the lap scorers and a German competitor was awarded the sidecar trophy.
"At the end of the event, we were confident that after completing five laps, we had secured our second win, but when the results were announced the sidecar trophy was awarded to a German pairing. On inspecting the lap scorer's sheets, it was obvious that they had missed the fact that they had only done two laps while we had achieved five. Our protest was upheld and two weeks later our winner's trophy appeared in the post, sadly broken in half'
For most people, the big vertical twin wasn't the easiest of engines to kick-start into life, but George soon became very adept at knowing the knack and he recalled an amusing incident in Germany when he was called upon to demonstrate the new engine.
"Robin [Rhind-Tutt, the man behind Wasp] was understandably keen to demonstrate the new engine to prospective motocross racers and sponsors, so we took a bike to the Wasp agent in Frankfurt for a backto-back test with a Yamaha engine machine. Amazingly, our engine fired up first kick, while the Yamaha steadfastly refused to chime into life. In racing, we were running the motor on Silkolene's very thick Castroline R oil and on very cold mornings it's fair to say it was not easy to just swing it over. I soon discovered the secret was on the day before the event to drain the lubricant into a can and on the day of the event heat it up on a portable gas cooker before pouring it into the engine, the result being an instant starter.
"In total Robin made around 50 engines, most of which were used for motocross or enduro, but he also made two five-speeders that were housed in road race frames and campaigned in the Battle of The Twins (BoTT) series. At one time, BSA also showed an interest in the twin to power a road bike, a mobile test bed was made up and it showed a lot of potential but sadly it required a lot of redesigning, especially regarding the noise generated by the straight cut gears and overcoming the impending new decibel limit. In fact, Robin did go as far as machining the crankcase to incorporate an electric starter but when the man at BSA retired, the project was dropped:'
There is no doubt that Wasp engine machine is a magnificent piece of engineering and in case you're wondering, it really does need a very special person to kick it over.