| Sounds like... |
To Make A Better Mousetrap
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| Listening in on Rex McCandless, Ernie Lyons and friends. |
On the evening of 1st April 1989, a testimonial dinner was held at the Royal Hotel DunLaoghaire Co. Dublin to honour the legendary Stanley Woods. In the wee small hours after this prestigeous event, Ernie and Bessie Lyons welcomed Rex McCandless, Gordon Small and Charlie Little to their home to round off the evening with a bit more reminiscing about the old days. So, at around 2.00 am Gordon took the opportunity to record the discussion, some of which is reproduced here, (slightly edited) as text and audio. Rex always liked to have more than his fair share of the discussion and the harmony of such an occasion depended largely on him being allowed to take centre stage. On this particular occasion he recalled how in 1946 at Brands Hatch, Artie Bell, Rex, and Ernie Lyons, in particular, had clearly demonstrated the superiority of the sprung frame for grass track racing. Although high compression pistons (modified by Rex) had been fitted to Ernie Lyons's Triumph Tiger 100, it would appear that little or no preparatory 'tuning' had been done prior to their arrival at the track. Rex was a lively story teller and the recordings give us a sense of his enthusiastic delivery. It was after 2.30am when they headed for bed. |
We are indebted to Gordon Small for this recording...
Brands Hatch 1946 | |
| Rex: | We went to Brands Hatch on one occasion about '46 Ernie ? Aye and we had six of our folk and six of the top 'Britishers'. However on this occasion, Artie Bell was riding a 500cc OHV AJS trials type of machine. A 500cc it was but she obviously had no 'poke' - she was a trials motor. But all the ["Irish"] bicycles had spring frames and this so and so here (Ernie) he didn't half show them how to go, and he pulled the security bolts in the back tyre, and he finished with a flat wheel and he still beat the heck out of Eric Oliver. |
| Ernie: | Well, the report said that I pulled it out on the last lap. I did not! I pulled it out on the second lap. I did two and a half laps on the flat tyre! Eric and I had agreed to do a sort of match race - a few laps just to finish off the day. He had said that he was tired and we agreed that if we were too tired we would stop after two laps. I thought this was grand - like when I got the puncture. I pulled in and Eric goes on belting down the straight - and I didn't like that at all ! |
| Rex: | That wasn't cricket - sure it wasn't ? |
| Ernie: | ...and I went after him. |
| Gordon: | and, did you get him? |
| Ernie: | I did indeed ! |
| Rex: | I made the first sidecar outfits for Eric Oliver |
| Gordon: | You did. That was the beginning of all the kneelers? |
| Rex: | No this wasn’t even a kneeler, the first one. |
| Gordon: | Was it not? Oh, that was the one that won the world championship? |
| Rex: | It did. We had suspension on the back wheel of the bicycle and also on the wheel of the sidecar outfit. But we didn’t know quite what strength of springs we needed - so there’s me on the platform watching the suspension - how it was functioning, and Eric [Oliver "doing his job"]. By god he was a tough man! |
| Gordon: | It must have been interesting sitting there ? [laughter] |
| Rex: | It was quite interesting - I can tell you that ! |
| Rex: | We had one bicycle which we needed some alcohol fuel for, and there was a fellow there called Hartley. |
| Gordon: | L.W.E. Hartley |
| Rex: | L.W.E. Hartley! and he very kindly let us have some methanol. |
| Ernie: | You were saying about Hartley... You didn't say he charged me 30 or 35 shillings for a gallon of his fuel. At that time we'd been buying methylated spirits at half-a-crown [2 shillings and 6 pence] a gallon. Remember how we toured Belfast [chemist shops] to try to get methylated spirits – we got a pint here and a pint there, and Hartley charged us that for the same fuel – that's all it was – just alcohol fuel. He came to me afterwards, to give me back the money if I allowed him to advertise the fact that I had used it, and your man here refused point blank to allow me to take back the money - My money! and let him use my name... and he didn't tell him in very polite language either ! |
| Charlie: | He didn't put any adjectives in it, did he ? |
| Gordon: | Be off with you my man! |
| Rex: | It was a great day's sport – it really was. We should have won that day. Jock West was riding a 500cc single cylinder on dope and I had the oul twin Triumph, and it wasn't on dope, but with the suspension... at Clearways corner after the start he could accelerate much quicker than me out of the corners but I was able to go a bit quicker than him when it came to the bendy bits - and to avoid a collision I had to brake inside the posts, - it was only a grass-track then. I knew I had done wrong and I slowed away back and let Jock get in front of me again - and then I went after him and passed him again, - but they still disqualified me. |
| Ernie: | Yes; that's what lost us the match. ["Belfast" 17 points - "Brands-H" 19 points] |
| Rex: | Do you remember that? |
| Ernie: | I do Yes, Of course, if I could have got my bike going earlier... I rode Cromie's 350 twin but that was a terrible camel really. It was well sprung behind but... |
| Rex: | Sure it wasn't a bicycle at all ! It wasn't a bicycle at all ! |
| Ernie: | I didn't get mine going for the match race at all, I think; if I remember rightly. In the first race I got going, I up-ended myself on the starting line anyhow ! |
| Rex: | Front wheel up in the blooming air ! He never had ridden anything with the power like it before ! By the way, the pistons were out of Freddie Dixon's Riley. |
| Gordon: | Were they? In Ernie's bike? |
| Rex: | They were 63½ mm whereas the Triumph was 63 mm. |
| Ernie: | You see - he was too lazy to fit them to his machine and he says you can have them so I fitted them. |
| Rex: | Boys! - she didn't half go ! I machined those pistons myself; - took the half a millimeter off them. |
| Gordon: | What, to make them fit the Triumph bore ? |
| Rex: | Yes |
| Gordon: | So they were out of Freddie Dixon’s Riley ? |
| Rex: | They were spare pistons from one of his Rileys |
| Gordon: | They weren't in for the Manx? |
| Rex: | No, Oh No! |
| Gordon: | Brands Hatch? |
| Ernie: | This was my own private Tiger 100 which we modified... He towed me down to the boat but on the old cobble stones I fell off and bent one of the shock- absorbers and he had to fix that. As a result of that apparently, I had knocked a tooth of the constant mesh pinion in the gearbox and when we were wheeling it down the platform at Liverpool I heard this tap-tap-tap and I knew what it was. Billy Nicholson was going to BSA to pick up his bike and he called Triumph and, fair do's, they gave him a complete gearbox. Mine had very close-ratio gears - his box was standard – it did the job all right, but I never got to see the track in advance. |
| Rex: | I can't recall now - what did we do about the mixture - ach sure I remember - we threw the needle away ! |
| Ernie: | When we started it – it would either run on full throttle or not at all. There was no in-between. I was to get a few practice laps. There were some bends where you really could not afford to keep the throttle against the stop all the time. After a few laps I discovered that the oil tank was overflowing - the methanol was just going into the crankcase and into the oil tank and we had to stop and up-end the bike to spill it out. The trouble was - I was on mineral oil and everyone else was on castor-base oil and we had to broadcast an announcement to get a gallon of mineral oil. Rex and Freddie Dixon were having a powwow about this. We had bored out the main jet roughly double or treble the size but we never thought about boring out the needle jet. Of course it was alright when the needle came out of the needle jet on full throttle but when the needle went back into the jet you were on too lean a mixture and it just wouldn't run. |
| Rex: | Now, we did a brave good job without much practice. There was nobody I know could have ridden yon bloody thing except yourself ! |
| Ernie: | Oh now, I wouldn't believe that ! |
| Rex: | My own wee Triumph (500 as it was), although it wasn't on dope, with the rear suspension I was able to hold the rest of the boys. |
| Ernie: | But that just shows you - with the spring frames, - even on Cromie's 350, I finished second or so. |
| Rex: | A wee 350 Triumph ?! - sure it wouldn't pull you out of bed ! We had some fun in those days son! Apart from having to try to make a living for ourselves. I'm going to my bed ! Ernie; How do I get to where I'm going ? |
Author's Note:
Rex's interesting story is supported by a little research.
The cylinders of the Triumph G.P. Speed Twin and the Tiger 100 were indeed
63 mm. Although the original bore of Fred Dixon’s 6 cyl Riley
in 1933 was 57.5mm it was increased in several stages thru 60.3 mm (1633
cc) to 63.5 mm (1808 cc) The bore was again increased later
so there is little doubt that Fred Dixon would have had spare pistons at
63.5 mm as Rex had indicated. It would be interesting to know
how the gudgeon pin sizes compared. |