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LUGGAGE28 :OLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA
Later, he fitted a TA125 Yamaha twin into a Hagon
frame, but perhaps his masterpiece was grafting a
road racing Yamaha TR3 twin into an Elstar chassis–
a sensationally fast machine that few could tame.
Charlie’s own racing career came to an end in
1975 shortly after winning yet again at the Morgan
Mile in South Australia, a track he loved and excelled
at. Following a minor operation, doctors could not
stem the bleeding. “They gave me about 20 pints of
blood. At the time I didn’t realise how bad I was until
they asked me if I wanted to do anything. So I made
a will. Then they sent a priest around.” It was time
to hang up the helmet, but Charlie was far from
finished with racing. At the annual Big Track meeting
at Bendigo Showground, Charlie brought his
TR3/Elstar along, just in case anyone needed a ride.
“The English speedway rider Nigel Boocock was
there but his bike had not arrived from UK, so the
organisers asked me if I would loan him the Yamaha.
He went out in practice but said, ‘It doesn’t go very
fast’, and I replied, ‘but it’s got a gearbox’ – he had
just been using first gear. So we put it in third and he
came back in and said, ‘Holy mackerel!’. He went
through three rear tyres in that meeting. Afterwards
he said, ‘Let’s take it to England’. He wanted to run
it in Germany in the World Long Track Championship,
so I took it to England and stayed with Nigel at his
home for six months. He gave a demonstration onit at Coventry Speedway and it went well – too well.
Just before we were due to take it to Germany he
received a letter in German saying it was banned
because it was dangerous. They didn’t want it
there, so they banned it. I think Nigel would have
got his first world title – it was flying and he was a
flyer on it too.”
Back in Australia, Charlie was approached by Rod
Hunter from Melbourne, who had just returned from
a successful racing stint overseas. Aboard the Yamaha,
Hunter won the Australian All Powers Championship
at the Morgan Mile, establishing a long-standing trackCHARLIE EDWARDS
BELOW A life-long
passion; model aircraft.
RIGHT And at the controls
of the real thing.