Saturday 14 June 2014

That man Driscoll ...


-SG- I have mentioned my good friend, the late Jack Bindley, before on this site. Primarily an AJS user in the twenties, he had a brief flirtation with a 1931 ES2 with which he was unimpressed. He then moved on to a works 1931 TT OK Supreme JAP which he kept for several years. Although born almost within sound of Brooklands, his family moved to Wembley to the north of London, and from what he has told me this area, during the twenties, was a veritable hot-bed of enthusiastic young men with motorcyles.

One of his pals - if I ever knew the name I have long since forgotten it - acquired a supposedly 'hot' flat tank 1926 Model 18 and he took it to Pat Driscoll's business in Ealing (not that far away), which rejoiced under the name of the Brooklands Service Station. He wanted advice on how to make it go even faster and was slightly surprised when Pat loaned him, for a modest fee, a pair of the then current  racing cams (I assume they were the IT cams mentioned before on this site), with instructions as to how they should be timed. The arrangement was that he could have the use of them for the season and was then to return them as autumn drew near. Jack, who related this to me during the eighties, was full of enthusiasm for the way that bike went with the racing cams in it and the owner did well in local speed events with it.

In view of this, I suppose it should not have been that much of a surprise to see an advert in the Motor Cycle of June 19th, 1930 for the Brooklands Service Station, in which Driscoll was offering to hire out complete Brooklands Nortons or track engines to those who wished to have a crack at speed events at the track.

A scan of the advert is above: it would be intriguing also to know more about the OHC outfit which is referred to in the text; probably a bit early for it to be a Carroll engined bike but a good performance for a Moore version ...