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Though he won many races and championships, it’s a single performance which will ensure immortality.
In the lead up to the 1962 Sidecar TT, it was a case of which of the BMW crews would run out victorious, and while the two-tone green outfit piloted by Chris Vincent was acknowledged to be fast and its driver skilful, the pushrod parallel twin BSA A7 engine was no match for the overhead camshaft, Rennsport flat-twin motors powering the stellar BMW devices. After all, BMW had won every sidecar TT since 1955, its re-introductory year being 1954. Vincent and passenger Eric Bliss didn’t seemingly have a chance. But they won.
Born January 20, 1935, Birmingham native Chris Vincent started his working career at ‘The BSA,’ though in those early days he was also in the employ of several other firms around Birmingham at various points – including Velocette – but it was at Norton where he really began to indulge his love of riding, putting in thousands of miles on anything and everything, ranging from the prototype 250cc single that was for years in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu to Ray Amm’s famous faired ‘Proboscis’ Manx racer.
At Norton, racing was the be-all and endall, and teenage Chris would spend his time charging about the city on Norton’s works hack sidecar outfit, collecting bits and pieces at the beck and call of race chief Joe Craig. The three-wheeled training was to prove useful, although his time at Norton was soon over; after AMC bought the firm, attitudes changed, Chris decamped back to where he’d started – BSA.
By now, Vincent had started racing, initially on solos, but the sidecar experience had stayed with him (plus he’d also worked at Norton with world sidecar champion Cyril Smith), and Chris was soon campaigning on three wheels, initially on the grass (becoming national champion on a BSA B33 in 1957) and at sidecar speedway. But road racing was his calling, the place he wanted to be, and he built a machine on which to indulge his appetite. Though he didn’t achieve instant success, and was grasstrack champion again in 1958, he decided to go ‘all in’ on the hard stuff in 1959.
The tarmac racing outfits, built by Chris, were based around road-going BSA A7 and A10 engines. Though he found success, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Talking to Peter Dobson in the spring 1989 issue of Classic Racer, Vincent explained: “If I did two meetings on an engine I was doing well. I was pressing them beyond the limit. At 9:1 the compression ratio was nothing special and finding more power wasn’t difficult, even with a single carburettor. By and large it was a matter of assembling them very carefully. But I had a lot of trouble caused by oil starvation, poor carburation and from gearboxes and clutches breaking up. I was forever working, and it took a lot of time to get things fixed.”
But it was ‘fixed’ enough to win the 1961 British championship – then came that famous 1962 TT. Florian Camathias/Heinz Burkhardt crashed out and Max Deubal/Emil Horner’s engine seized, leaving Vincent to run in winner, ahead of the Otto Kolle/Karl Hess BMW and Colin Seeley/Wally Rawlings Matchless G50. More BMWs were fourth to
sixth. The average speed of Vincent, with Eric Bliss in the chair, was 83.57mph. That’s two men on a 500cc BSA A7 and sidecar. It was also BSA’s first-ever TT win. Interestingly when Chris recorded his best solo TT result, eighth in the 1967 250cc Production TT, his speed was 80.63mph.
After his TT win, Vincent continued to dominate at home with his BSAs, while he also acquired a BMW for a full-on attack on the sidecar world championship, then there was a tie-up with the four cylinder URS machine. As well as his sidecar talent, Chris was a more than capable solo racer too – in fact, a rider good enough to finish 12th in the 1964 Lightweight 125 TT on a CR93 Honda, as well as riding Aermacchis in the Lightweight 250 and 350cc Junior races that same year.
In 1964, he ran Bill Ivy close in the 125cc British Championship, often racing in the class the same day as on the sidecar, on which he was again national champion. In 1965, he went even better, taking the British 50cc title (on a CR110 Honda) as well as the sidecar crown, which he won five times. Interestingly, during this period he was unofficially a BSA works rider, being paid as a ‘tester’ though to all intents and purposes a full time racer.
After disappointment with the URS scenario and a brief spell with a Yamaha, he quit racing in 1974, focussing his attention on his garage business in Earl Shilton, close to Mallory Park. Sons Max and Jay both raced at a high level too, Jay being 250cc British champion and making it to Grand Prix.
Chris continued to enjoy motorcycling and was a regular at shows, events and parades, where he’d be equally happy and adept on three wheels or two. He died, aged 86, on February 18, 2021.