MOTORCYCLE SPEEDMEN - continued

an appointment which he celebrated by creating a record for the kilometre at 85 m.p.h. on a sidevalve Norton. Riding a 249 c.c. Velocette he attained 70 m.p.h., a speed which to this day has seldom been equalled on a small two stroke.

During 1921 a cup was offered by Messrs. Godfrey’s for the first 500 c.c. machine to attain 90 m.p.h. Ever ready to improve the shining hour, O’Donovan and Judd as tuner and rider respectively annexed this trophy comfortably with a speed of over 92 m.p.h. This was about the first time that the partners used a machine with a gearbox—the well known 16H. Norton. During his connection with O’Donovan, Judd usually acted as passenger for ” Don ” himself and his partner H. H. Beech. The latter set up many long distance sidecar records,

for the honour of being the first rider to attain 100 m.p.h. on a 3ih.p. machine. The result of this contest is well known, how each successively approached a little nearer the magic figure, and how eventually the Douglas exponent managed to earn a certificate for covering the half mile at 100.6 m.p.h. whereas Judd’s speed over the kilometre and mile was in the neighbourhood of 98 m.p.h.

At the close of this season, feeling that it was time he sought employment that offered wider scope for his activities Rex Judd joined Douglas Motors Ltd., and was attached to Cyril Pullin who represented that firm at Brooklands. Judd’s first appearance on a Douglas machine was at Kop Hill in 1923, before which he had never been astride a racing Douglas. Owing to unfamiliarity with his mounts it was not surprising that he did not attain great

and on one occasion the sidecar wheel became detached with the result that Beech, Judd, Norton and sidecar passed through the railings on the edge of the track. The most serious injuries were incurred by the sidecar body but the incident served as one step in the baptism of dust (or concrete), that is so essential to the upbringing of a speedman !

Another notable performance on the 16H. Norton was the 24 hour record set up by Horsman, O’Donovan and Judd, in which they averaged 64 m.p.h. for the whole period. During 1922 Judd made a few appearances on the early o.h.v. Nortons and contrived to set up several more records, including the 5 and 10 miles, and also became engaged in a fierce struggle with C. G. Pullin

success in the solo classes ; in the sidecar events, however, he carried all before him, riding 500 c.c. and 750 c.c. machines. At the first B.M.C.R.C. meeting of that year Judd won the 350 c.c. and 500 c.c. scratch races and during the season annexed numerous records and five out of the seven scratch races entered for.

During 1924 he continued to race with the usual varying success of the speedman, on Douglas machines, and rode the same make in the I.O.M. T.T. races, all the time increasing his knowledge and experience of the ways of fast motors. 1925 proved to be an adventurous year for Rex Judd ; in the Senior T.T. he fell in Ramsey and broke a footrest, for the remaining 5 laps he rode under great discomfort with a foot badly burnt through rest

ing on the hot exhaust pipe. For this plucky performance he was awarded the Nisbet Trophy. In the 1925 200 -mile solo race at Brooklands he participated in a

never-to-be-forgotten ” scrap ” when 5 riders in a bunch all broke the hour record and covered 100 miles at over 90 m.p.h., though eventually none finished the course. Towards the end of the season Judd had a nasty crash at about 100 m.p.h. when he touched another competitor’s back wheel. Luckily he escaped serious injury, though his machine was wrecked. During 1926 Judd has not been very successful, a fact which he puts down to the works being overoccupied in coping for the enormous demand for the E. W. Douglas, but he has great hopes for 1927, when his activities will be divided between Brooklands, Bristol and his newly found partnership with Bob Newitt at High Wycombe

THE SOUTH AFRICAN T.T.

News received last week acquainted us with the results of the South African T.T. races. The first and second places in the Senior (500 c.c. class) were obtained by Percy Flook, a well known rider, mounted on a Norton, and Len Cohen on a 350 c.c. A.J.S. respectively. The latter established a lap record by covering the circuit of twenty miles in 18 minutes 5 seconds. He

also won in the Junior event, covering the course of two hundred miles in the record time of 3 hours 20 minutes.