Old Bike Australasia — Issue 68 2017

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

OLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA: 11

Continental Circus in ’64 and later press stuff, at first
for Bruce Cox at MCW in California, but the XS
fairing was my first venture into working on concept
design work for manufacture. It suffered during
production development, losing some subtlety,
gaining girth and a lot of weight, but Dave Bean,
Yamaha’s tester loved it because he could smoke at
100 mph on the Autobahns. It led to me working for
Yamaha for 20 years, and Suzuki, Hesketh and then
another 20 for Triumph from start up through to the
Bonnevilles. These weren’t pensionable jobs so I’m
still hunched over bloody computer all day now...

John Mockett
Northampton UK

Jolly Jack Ahearn –

competitor and friend

I first met Jackin May 1962 at an international
event at St Wendell in West Germany. The organisers
decided to have a short qualifying race for each
class late on Saturday afternoon, in my experience
this was the first occasion when qualifying was a
requirement at an International event. Jack was
furious, “The bastards pay you bugger all start
money and want you to do two races in each class
and you silly young buggers don’t protest.” As a
positive display of his displeasure, after having
qualified in the first four in each class, Jack loaded
his van and after telling the organisers what he
thought of them, though how the interpreter coped
I have no idea, he returned to England.
During the early ’50s most riders used large vans
as transport with built in home comforts. Jack being
a carpenter had done this. By the late ’50s the top
riders had moved onto smaller faster vans and
stayed in hotels and in my time, when start money
had shrunk even more, we used similar smaller
vans, Bedford and Ford Thames, for transport and
rather basic sleeping quarters.
Some weeks later at the East German and
Czechoslovakian Grand Prix I spent more time with
Jack. I had cobbered up with a group of Austrians
during my first year, they were good blokes, riding
well prepared Nortons, the first to have six speed
gear boxes, and with a similar outlook as my own.
Jack fitted in well, feeding us young innocents his
descriptions of the good old days back in the ’50s.
We stopped off in Vienna and I stayed at Bertie
Schneider’s mother’s home with Jack and his self-
contained van outside Bertie’s workshop. On the
following Tuesday evening, we all went to the
‘Playboy Club’ for a meal and a few drinks. After a
great evening, we returned late. Wednesday morning
was not the most pleasant of occasions but well
worth the great evening we had enjoyed. Wondering
how Jack was doing, we drove down to Bertie’s

garage and after banging on the sides of his van, we

finally heard verbal abuse emanating from it. “You

young bastards have got no respect for age, take a

poor old bugger out and get him totally pissed and

think it’s a joke. Well it isn’t and you can all f – off.”

For me 1963 was a year of total commitment.

Not only to the Suzuki race team, but my lovely wife

Janny. The reward was winning the 50cc and 125cc

World Championships. For the last round of the

series at Suzuka in October, Suzuki wheeled out a

250cc square four. The first test session was a

disaster. On the fourth lap, Bertie Schneider’s

gearbox seized and Frank Perris following close

behind hit his bike and fell heavily. Two bikes

wrecked and one rider out with a broken collarbone

after just four laps. Like so many others, I am able

to resist all things except temptation and took over

Bertie’s entry and joined Frank Perris and Ernst

Degner in the 250cc team. After the start when

Ernst accelerated out of the first corner he fell

RIGHTJohn Mockett with Wayne Rainey when John was

with the Team Roberts outfit in 500cc GP.

Jack Ahearn on the bike he christened

“Whispering Death” – the square four 250cc Suzuki.