A trip to see Joe Potts at Bellshill during the mid 1960’s

The following is Dave Law’s recollections of his trip to visit Joe Potts in the 1960’s:

Bob McIntyre was my hero. I can remember exactly where I was then my mother told me he had died. It hit me hard – the ace of aces was gone! I was 16 years old when this happened.

A few years later, Colin East asked me if I was willing to take him all over Scotland for a week or so as he did not have a car licence. As I had never been to Scotland it interested me. My transport was an old Morris Minor van. I had welded two 12” wide steel panels at the rear of each front wing. As they were unpainted they had gone rusty. One of the rear lights used to drop out and swing on its wire – the body was rusty where it should have been. The van cost me £10, but it never let me down. This was our transport and sleeping accommodation. It certainly gave no impression of wealth.

So off we went, Scotland or bust. Colin had contacted no end of people and we collected motorcycle parts from all over Scotland. Everywhere we went the friendliness and hospitality of the people was superb. We sometimes had so many people feeding us we were absolutely stuffed – we did not like to offend them by not eating!

For my part I enjoyed the company of the Scottish people and wonderful scenery. The sight of an eagle soaring, not very high above the ground, flying nearly parallel to us, at our speed and not far away will stay with me always. That experience was near the Castle of Mey at the very top of Scotland.

Apart from seeing Scotland, my only real interest was to visit Joe Potts at Bellshill – Bob McIntyre’s friend and sponsor. We arranged our course to visit Bellshill on our way back down heading home.

We found Potts’ garage which was much larger than I had anticipated. I parked my rough looking Morris Minor van and stood on the pavement wondering whether or not to go in. I’d been sleeping in the van for a few days and I felt very scruffy and not at all confident. This place had been the base of the road racer that I most admired. Being quiet and shy by nature, I wondered if we would be welcome.

I decided that I would soon be sent away if I was not welcome. I managed to muster up my courage and walked to the open garage door with Colin with me. Once inside there were, I think, three mechanics working under cars on three ramps to the right. I believe it was the foreman, in a white smock, who came over to enquire what I enquired.

I asked if it was possible to speak to Mr Potts. He asked “Which Mr Potts?” I replied, “Mr Joe Potts.”

“Follow me,” he said, and we walked out of the garage door and turned to the right, through a double door and into an oak panelled corridor. The foreman asked us to wait. He knocked on a door and entered. We were invited into an oak panelled office with Mr Potts sat at the desk behind the door. He asked what we wanted. I guess that I must have looked a little nervous and I said I was interested in motorcycles. He replied that he had all the time in the world for motorcycles, with a very friendly manner, which put me at ease. Mr Potts quickly rose from his chair, opened a door in the panelling and put on a smock. He led us to the back wall of the garage and unlocked a door. In we went.

The various motorcycle press articles I had read about Bob McIntyre sometimes had photographs of Bob McIntyre in the workshop, preparing engines and bikes including a shot of him putting a Manx engine on the dyno’. This was the place where it had all happened and the photos had been taken.

I felt I was on hallowed ground, It was all here!

Bob McIntyre with Joe Potts and Joe Woollams at Bellshill in 1958

Mr Potts enquired of my intentions and ideas. He started bringing various items from the store ‘cage’ that he felt may be of use to me with the benefit of valuable advice based on their experience. He gave me several tips, often explaining how they found them out by chance. If it gave more power, they incorporated it in future engines. At one stage Mr Potts said with obvious affection, respect and admiration in the tone and manner of his voice “When you are dealing with a rider like Bob McIntyre....” A feeling of sadness came over me for Mr Potts’ obvious loss of a good friend, companion and a very great part of his life over many years.

Amongst the components Mr Potts brought out for me was an E95 Porcupine connecting rod, in case I wished to make a 250cc engine. He explained that they had engine parts and castings in case they wanted to make a 350cc Porcupine. AJS had supplied with these parts to them. I was told that AJS had let them have the parts to build a 350cc engine if they wished, but not a 500cc machine.

By now I was concerned that I may not be able to afford all the parts and told Mr Potts so. He very generously replied that they would cost me nothing.

Colin expressed an interest in the Porcupine cylinder head castings and some other items and was also given them.

Eventually we left. I felt I had an audience with a very good, warm natured and generous man – a great engineer. When the Bellshill team was in full swing it must have felt so very complete and happy to be part of it, I could very much understand why various people willingly gave their time to help out with Bob McIntyre’s racing programme.

It was such an amazing experience for me and I will never forget it.

Another Yorkshire Special – The Myers

Coming from Hull, the Myers family were responsible for the making of a number of ‘special’ frames which were used by some of the top riders in the area.

Bert Myers was a driver for L.V. Brooksbank at Hedon and was a self-taught engineer. Around the racing paddocks Bert was known as “Dad Myers”, and was a popular figure due to his willingness to help any rider out with his welding skills.

Bert had two sons, Roger and Tony. Tony Myers went on to become one of the top runners in racing in the late 60’s and 1970’s. In July 1966 Tony purchased a 1959 AJS 7R for £250 off Bob Peck of Batley. With the progress made by Aermacchis in the 350cc racing class, by the summer of 1968 Tony realised that they would have to improve their old AJS. They realised that a lighter and stiffer chassis was needed for the 7R.

Tony’s brother, Roger worked in the drawing offices at Blackburn General Aircraft of Brough. He started drawing out some possible frame designs for the machine. The chief designer at Blackburn caught Roger sketching the frame and enquired what he was doing. Roger went on to explain that he was trying to come up with an improved design for a racing motorcycle frame. The chief engineer’s response was that “it is bloody obvious lad”. He then proceeded to point two lines across the drawing with the end of his pipe, which a brownish stain from the steering head to the swinging arm. The design of the Myers frame was thus conceived!

The mk1 Myers with 7R engine under construction

 Norton steering head geometry was utilised on the machine. Bert made a very heavy jig consisting of two massive sections of channel welded to a base in order to construct the frame. During fabrication, the jig held the frame in an upside down position. T45 tubing was used in the construction of the frame, the tubes being packed with sand and heated during the bending process, before they were bronze welded.

The Myers 7R sat on 18” rims front and rear and was about 1” lower than a standard chassis. A 210mm Fontana front brake was used and a drilled and lightened 7R hub retained at the rear. A purpose made fibreglass petrol tank was made around a wooden former.

The Myers 7R

The first test of the Myers 7R was in April 1969 at a Cadwell Park Thursday test day. At the Cadwell National in April the top of the carburettor unscrewed, however, by the end of April the Myers 7R took its first victory at a racing 50 club event at Cadwell. It was apparent that from these first few rides that Bert and Roger had got the balance and centre of gravity of the machine just right. Tony found the Myers 7R a confidence inspiring motorcycle which was a joy to ride. More club wins were to come and also some top 6 finishes at National events. Roger also raced the machine at Croft on a couple of occasions when Tony was injured.

 

Tony continued to race the Myers 7R throughout 1970 and into early 1971. In late 1970 Bert Myers started work on a second frame for Wally Dawson, this time to house a 500cc Manx engine. Measurements for this were taken from Wally’s 350cc Manx Norton and caused some head-scratching when the taller 500cc engine was offered up for the first time. Flats had to be cut on the inside of the main diagonal tubes to clear the cylinder head. The fork yokes were also fabricated using steel sheet, ala Ray Petty. A Campagnolo double disc and hub was fitted at the front end and a single Campagnolo disc at the rear, both these being mechanically operated. At Silloth in April 1971 Tony raced the Myers Manx to 6^th place in the final.  Later that year Wally raced it at Castle Combe and practiced with it at the TT, but found it unsuitable for the race.

The Manx Norton engined mk2 Myers with Wally Dawson 

 As Tony had injured his hand racing the Myers 7R, this was sold to Dick Cassidy who is now a TT marshal, and the Myers Manx project abandoned and parts sold. Alan Coultas bought the mk2 Myers Manx frame in 1972 and set about converting it to use with his racing Velocette Venom engine.

During the winter of 1973 Bert started work on his third and last frame, this time to house a Yamaha TZ350 engine. Tony had raced an ex-Mick Grant TR3 that season, but sold the rolling chassis to pay for the parts to convert the engine to water cooling. This was fitted to Bert’s frame after two additional front tubes were added to support the engine. The fork yokes on the mk3 frame were machined from solid aluminium. Tony went back to club racing in 1974. The bike was not a complete success however, as it had the tendency to “fall over” in bends, making it hard to control and resulting in a loss of rider confidence.

The mk2 (then with Velocette engine) and mk3 (Yamaha) Myers machines together

Alan Coultas ran his Velocette using the mk2 Myers Manx frame for 4 seasons. Alan also converted the Campagnolo disc brakes to hydraulic operation after altering the rim off-set and spoke angle to suit. Due to to cracks developing from the flats on the main tubes of the mk2 frame, Alan then bought the third Myers Yamaha frame. Once again he modified this to fit his 500cc Velocette, adding two short cross-tubes to the rear of the engine. A five speed Quaife gearbox and Norton clutch were also fitted, the engine having to be off-set in the frame to ensure the correct primary chain line.  This bike was raced and developed for many years and achieved considerable success at national level. Riders included: John Beney, Wally Dawson, Alec Swallow and of course Tony Myers who almost lapped the entire field at Cadwell Park to win the E.A. Lavington Trophy in May 1983.

During 1988/89 Tony started collecting all the components he would need to build the Myers 7R for a second time and commissioned Roger Titchmarsh to make the frame. This was to the original drawings done by Roger Myers all those years ago, complete with tobacco stained line!  The bike ran for the first time in 1990 and Tony raced it later that year at the MGP. He also had wins at Mallory and Brands Hatch and finished 2^nd in the 1991 350cc Kennings Championship.

From the office of Joe Potts - Joe's most important pictures

After approximately thirty years three important pictures are reunited together. These three pictures were the photos that Joe Potts had in his office at Bellshill. The photos are of the racers who meant more to Joe than anyone else – Bob McIntyre, Alastair King and Charlie Bruce.

The first photo shows Bob McIntyre winning the 1959 Senior F1 TT on one of Joe’s Manxes.

The second shot is taken after the “Formula double Scotch” (or the 1959 F1 TT) and shows Alastair King with Bob Mac. Alastair also won the Junior F1 TT on Joe’s AJS 7R. The two photos from the Formula 1 TT were supplied to Joe by the Motor Cycling Magazine.

The final photo shows Joe’s old friend Charlie Bruce on his DOHC Velocette. It can be seen that Charlie has remounted after a crash (rips on the back of his leathers).

The photos had been kept in a garage but have now been mounted in new frames which are the same as Joe himself specified (he had written light oak on the back of each picture).

DRM 3 cylinder restored

Hugh Ward has recently restored the DRM and has kindly provided me some pictures. It certainly looks a lot smarter than the last time I saw it in the back of a van at Beveridge Park! Hugh has done a great job and the DRM looks stunning. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

If more information on the DRM is required, here is the link to my original post:

DRM three cylinder

An account of the DRM 3 cylinder:

The post below is based on the words of Mike Brown who helped with the machining of the DRM:

"I was approached about modifying the crankcases and as you sit on the bike facing forward the right-hand most casing is as per original, the next one left has most of the careful machining which removed the crankcase area leaving the gearbox in tact with a flat face to butt against. The next crankcase part moving left was just a small crank case section generally about 35mm wide and finally the left-hand most casing contained a full crankcase but with the gearbox part all removed. The whole thing had to be lined up and holes bored for hollow dowels and long studs or with my engine, long specially made cap screws which held the crankcases together. Finally the mouths of the crankcase assembly were skimmed by removing about 0.2mm.”

“Davy had worked out that if we use 2 crankshaft centre sections of existing AS3 parts, we could seal the crankcases and due to the 6 splines that join the cranks together we would only require 2 crank halves to be modified. These were clocked up and the crank pin hole and the counter bore reinstated 120 degree round to the right with the original crankpin hole filled with a plug so as to help restore rotational balance. Once I had finished with the crank parts my good friend and colleague Hugh Ward reassembled the big end and rod assemblies by pressing them together and clocking them up true.”

“DRM racing sponsored a well experienced and able Scottish racer Mr Bill Milne and Bill had used an overbored /modified TA 125 in the 200cc class I think from memory it was 132cc all this work was done with Davy’s close links with Fahron engineering who produced very successful sets of water cooled barrels at that time. Fahron also produced the 3 cylinder barrels by making the cylinder pitch the same as the twin and machining the barrels and liners as they normally would.”

“Many other issues had to be addressed and Hugh would be able to provide this information but I do recall that initially ignition was with a Femsa unit. This machine was a very free revving unit but for various reasons it seemed to lack low down power in my view, probably due to porting, so performance was concentrated at the top end of the power range approaching 14,000rpm and the rider Kaj did run big end assemblies.”

An important person in the design of the Hopper special

Ian Hopper’s dog was very important to him and he even ensured that his new racing car was designed around the dog. Behind the driver a removable section was incorporated which allowed Ian’s dog to sit by him.

Ian Hopper's dog.

Hopper Special returns from holiday

Following from my previous post, here is the photo of the Hopper special as it returns from a holiday in Strontian. Note the stag wrapped up on the luggage grid! I think it is fair to say not many other racing cars would have been used in the same manner as this.