Apart from the short delay at the
Hungarian-Austrian border, courtesy of our South African friend, everything seemed
to be going to plan and we calculated that with the extra fuel
(48 gallons) which we were now carrying we would get to Skofja Loka without having to buy any
more, how wrong we were!
At the first hill we came to approaching the Austrian
border, our faithful Ford Thames began to protest quite violently at
the quality of the fuel. To be more precise the engine started to
'pink' (pre-ignition). Once over the border we had no alternative but to buy more
fuel of a better quality. After some experimentation we found that if we mixed 1 gallon of
Hungarian petrol with 2 gallons of Austrian petrol we could motor
along without any further protest from the engine, this we thought had
solved our fuel problems, wrong again!
Approximately half way to Skofja
Loka we became aware of a smell of petrol and on
examination discovered some of the 6 gallon tanks, but not all, were
beginning to leak at their seams! We quickly repositioned the tanks so
that the leaking seams were uppermost and as far away as was possible
from the van exhaust. With windows now wide open and always parking
well away from any other vehicles we, rather foolishly perhaps,
continued on our way hoping we would be able to use up all of our
cheap fuel before any further calamities befell us.
"Lady Luck" was clearly still on our side and we arrived
at Skofja Loka on the 20th May without any further problems (but
minus only 3 of the leaking Hungarian fuel tanks!)
Skofja
Loka is an ancient, attractive, town in the heart of Slovenia; a spectacular
mountainous and heavily forested country with many lakes. Slovenia is easily the scenic equal of Switzerland,
Austria or the English Lake district.
Driving into a square at the centre of the town we
were soon directed to the Town Hall. Here we met a most helpful lady
who explained our options regarding
accommodation whilst we were in Skofja Loka. Having been somewhat
spoilt in Budapest, and having established that we could pay the bill
in the local currency, we opted to stay at the only hotel in town
rather than at the free camp site situated outside of town close
to the circuit
For reasons I cannot now quite remember, we assumed the
race meeting at Skofja Loka would be a relatively small International
meeting. This seemed to be borne out when checking
into the hotel. We found we were the only competitors to have booked
accommodation there.
After dinner we went sight seeing and again everything seemed very
quiet in the town. We began to wonder just how few foreign International riders
were going to turn up for the races.
What a surprise we had when arriving at the circuit the
following morning. The paddock was full of International riders and
mechanics from 16 countries — none of whom were staying at our hotel
as unbeknown to us the Yugoslavian authorities had earlier
announced they would allow the conversion of their currency, within
certain limits, to hard currencies at the borders for foreign
visitors when leaving Yugoslavia - I am still glad we opted to stay
at the hotel for reasons which will soon become obvious!
The Skofja Loka circuit, again on closed public roads,
was a little longer but similar in shape to Mallory Park with the
exception that the hairpin bend was even tighter than at Mallory and
consisted of a steep rise at the entry and up to halfway
around the bend! — this caused havoc in both practice & the races
as many of the riders did not have a low enough bottom gear to
get through this hairpin even when slipping the clutch. In one case I saw an AJS 7R rider
jump off and push his bike around the apex of the bend - and he did not
lose much ground on the other competitors!
Fortunately,
as it was to prove, my 125, 250 and 256cc Parillas had ideal bottom
gear ratios for starting and navigating this hairpin bend.
Having driven around the circuit at least a dozen times
in the Thames van before the start of practice I felt confident the Parillas
would go well at Skofja Loka. Most of the bends, in addition to
the notorious hairpin, were tight enough to slow down the more
powerful bikes (particularly the 350cc machines) and the straights
were short enough to prevent them from over exploiting any power
advantage they had over my Parillas.
Practice
went well for me in all classes being timed at
10th, 6th and 12th respectively in the 125, 250 and 350cc classes
during the first timed practice session. Trying to get a little
more power from the Parillas we decreased the size of the main jets
and lowered the carburettor needles one notch for the final practice sessions the following day — this was to
turn out to be a big mistake!
That evening, returning to the hotel, we heard English
voices at the reception. They turned out to from Raymond and Bert
from Stockport, UK. They had been staying at our hotel for several
weeks whilst installing new textile machinery, supplied by
their employer back in the UK, into a factory close by the race
circuit. They had been watching the practice session that day and
we soon got into conversation before joining them for drinks and
dinner
at the hotel. Our meeting up with them resulted in us passing on 2 mechanics passes so
they could join us the following day and for the
rest of the races.
In
the morning we discovered that the changes we
had made to carburation the previous day helped to improve
pickup (acceleration) on the 125 and we also gained an extra 200
- 300 RPM in top gear. This helped me to advance my position on the starting grid during my
second practice lap from 10th to 7th when disaster struck — the
engine seized!
This happened after I had gone through the double
bend at the end of the start and finishing straight and just as I was
changing down a gear to take the next right-hand bend.
Having already started to lean into the oncoming
right-hand bend the engine seizure momentarily locked the rear wheel
before I could get the clutch in. This sent me, still on the bike,
sliding towards the front gardens of a small group of houses
positioned right next to the track, fortunately for me and the owner
of the front garden gate, it was open! My speed was now down from
about 70 to 10 MPH. When seeing the next obstacle coming up was the front door of the house I panicked,
applied too much rear
brake, and fell with the bike on top of me into a large flower bed. I
do not know who was more surprised, myself or the owner of the
house who had been sitting on his front wall watching all these events
unfold and finally the attempted destruction of his flower bed!
The race organisers sent a truck to collect my 125
which fortunately was not in too bad a state. I was not quite so
lucky being bruised all over and having sprained my left wrist and
right ankle - I was in no shape to attempt further practice
that day and my earlier lap times had to stand. This meant I was relegated further back down the starting grid in each
class as the other riders continued to improve their lap times.
This was to be my first, and fortunately
only, crash in 1964. I could not but kick myself, as I was taken to the First Aid Centre
and then back to the Hotel, for having been so greedy in seeking more
power from the engines when I already had enough to gain (with any
luck) top 10 places
in each class. The poor quality of the fuel did not help but I was
already aware of this danger — my last thoughts as I went to bed
that night were 'what a plonker'. After seeing that I was
generally ok back at the hotel Vic returned to the paddock with Bert and Raymond where
they worked late into the night rebuilding the 125 and rejetting
the 250 and 256cc Parillas back to their previous settings!
The following morning, after a hot bath and 3 or 4
aspirin, I was still feeling very stiff but determined to make up for
my earlier mistake. When we arrived at the paddock there was pandemonium and we were informed Ginger Molloy and a group of
New Zealand and Australian riders and mechanics, together with
the American riders Ramon Robinson & Andy Rickman, had all been
arrested by the Police in Ljubijana the previous evening! Apparently
things had got out of hand in a restaurant when someone (the culprits
were never identified) started to throw bread rolls about and unfortunately the aforementioned group
were caught up in the disturbance when
the Police arrived
This was, of course, a major problem for the race
organisers who now had some of their best known competitors locked up
and a race meeting to run. After many frantic telephone calls between
the Mayors office in Skofja Loka and the Authorities in Ljubijana it
was agreed they would all be released subject to surrendering their
Passports. Approximately 3 hours later, after seeing a rather distressed
Claire Molloy (Ginger's wife) and one of the organisers rushing around collecting the
now branded delinquents passports, they all turned up looking rather
sheepish but otherwise non the worse for their experience in Police
custody — all this before the racing had even started!
At last the first race of the day
started, from
the back of the pack I rapidly began to make up places on my 125
Parilla. It is amazing how quickly you forget any injuries you may
have once you get into a race — particularly if you are picking off
the opposition one by one. Keeping one hand on the clutch lever for
the whole race, and hoping the engine would not seize again, I was
relieved and delighted when I crossed the finishing line and later
discovered I had finished in 6th place — the best position I had
achieved on a Parilla so far. The
race was won by Ulf Svensson followed by Manfred Magnus & Peter
Eser - all riding 125 cc Hondas.
One reason I will always remember this race
is
that for the very first time I was racing up against Tim Lake from
Esher Surrey. I had been introduced to Tim, back in the Winter of 1962
or 63 by John Bacon, another motorcycle racer and my mentor for
many years. We had spent a number of evenings at Tim's home listening to him
describing his experiences and the 'Do's and Don'ts' of racing on the
Continent . I will always be grateful for his sound advice which
may have helped me stay ahead of him on his MV in the 125cc
race at Skofja Loka.Tim did encounter some
gearbox problems during the race which may account for my being able
to beat him.
From the
3rd or 4th row of the grid in the 250cc race I had a flying start
& was up behind the leading group of riders which included the two New
Zealander's Ginger Molloy and Morrie Lowe on very quick Bultacos,Ulf
Svensson (Bultaco?),Rudi Thalhammer on an Aermacchi,
a Benelli & two MZs. This was racing for real and I soon forgot (or
ignored) all Tim's advice (to only ride at 95% of ones ability)
swapping places at almost every corner.
This was the closest racing I had been in on a 250 up to this time and
I enjoyed every minute of it. Half way through the race one of
the MZs dropped out shortly followed by the Benelli then 2 or 3
laps before the finish Ginger dropped out with an
engine seizure and Morrie disappeared as well. This all made it a little easier for me to take
third place behind the winner Svensson and Thalhammer in second — my first podium finish in an
International event!
The 350cc race was just as much fun, particularly at
the hairpin where I was able to pick up 2 or 3 places on each lap only
to have 1 or 2 of the riders I had just overtaken come thundering past
me on the following start and finishing straight! I was still
able however to get from the 5th row of the grid to a 10th
place finish which came non too soon as I was tiring and the effects
of the aspirin were beginning to wear off.
The race was won by
Morrie Lowe (AJS) followed in byJohn Smith also on a (AJS) and Eddie
Lenz (Norton)
What a day to remember
and also the celebrations which went on well into the night and the
following morning!
Again we had another two week gap before our next
scheduled race in Albi, close to Toulouse, in France. We therefore
decided to extend our stay at Skofja Loka for two days so that we
could do some sight seeing & take a short break. I was certainly in need of
R&R
after the celebrations and my earlier encounter with the flower bed!
The Hotel in which we had been staying was fully
booked for the week following the races so we accepted the kind offer
to stay for two nights with the family of the Lady who had first
welcomed us in the race control office at the town hall on our arrival at Skofja Loka -
this proved to be a very good move in that it was not only interesting
to be staying with a Slovenian family but the family included a
young teenage daughter who spoke some English and an even younger son, both
very keen to show us around town and the surrounding
countryside.
We were to visit Skofja Loka and stay with the
same family again later in the year.
Some years later I was fortunate and very
pleased, to be in a position to assist their daughter to obtain a UK
entry visa, when my wife and I acted as her guarantors whilst she
completed a nursing training program at a London Teaching Hospital.
On
to the next chapter...
