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Somewhere in the early sixties a friend of mine, Malcolm, introduced me to Go Kart racing. He was the Maintenance Engineering Manager at the place where I earned my crust as Quality Assurance and Technical Services Manager. He had been racing for a couple of years. One day he asked, “Have you ever thought of having a go at kart racing?”.
Well no such notion had occurred because, I did not really know what Kart Racing was. I had never seen a kart. So this was swiftly corrected by a trip down to his home, which was a very large house, in a dales village, which had buildings behind it that had been stables and a coach house. These buildings were given over to motor cars, motor cycles and now go karts.
The outcome of this visit was that the following weekend he would bring his kart up to the factory and let me sample the experience of “scooting along at 60 mph with your bum less than six inches above floor level” around the large factory yard and car park.
In one of those strange coincidences another fellow, who worked in the production offices and who several years after this became Specifications Officer in my Q. A. department, had been a “Karter”, but had been “persuaded” by his wife to go back to ballroom dancing. I bought his kart for a very sensible price and joined a Karting Club. The frame itself was a fairly heavy one but the engine/gearbox unit was very good.
These Karting clubs were few and far between, and tied up somehow to the RAC. (which seemed to have gained a hold over most Motor Sports). The nearest Karting Club was the Thirsk K. C. almost 50 miles away. As it turned out there were many small Clubs with no “home track” and very often the drive to a venue was quite long and took several hours, depending on how much urban traffic had to be contended with and, bearing in mind that the business of “Motorways” was in it's infancy, the miles seemed to be longer at that time.
I had knocked together a camping trailer a few year earlier and this proved to be not entirely perfect for the job but would suffice for a novice. The upshot was that I took to it like duck to water. I found that the handling of my kart was very poor and could in no way cope with all the power that my engine could turn out, so during the first winter I decided to build a new frame (or “chassis” for the aficionado ).
Malcolm had formerly been in the employ of the country's top motor car and aero engine manufacturers in the design office and was second best to no one when it came to structural matters. He had designed and built his own frame and it was second to none when it came to handling. He kindly said I could use his design to build my own kart in his work shop. So I took up his offer.
The shortest route to his house from mine was about 11 miles and at the time I was not a “company car” man. So I when I came across a Scootercar three wheeler, for a silly price, I decided it made sense to acquire it. It was a very low mileage little thing, that was as quirky as they come, but it served my purpose admirably. It was powered by a two stroke 197cc Villiers engine/gearbox unit and had two wheels at the front, one driving wheel at the back. “Accommodation” was an upholstered inverted box in the middle of the body, covering the “propulsion unit” and at the same time providing something to sit on. The gear lever was on the right hand side of this box and had four forward gears. Changing gear was achieved by moving this backwards and forward. In theory it also provided four reverse gears if one started up the engine running backwards (for which there was provision).
It had an electrical starter which often worked, particularly in warm dry weather, but in cold damp weather the drill was to open the door (there was only one, and that was on the left hand side), reach inside and turn on the ignition, pull out the choke button, ensure the gear box was in neutral and the hand brake was off. Then, with the door open, start to push the vehicle forwards by means of the door surround/windscreen frame. When sufficient speed and momentum was achieved one nimbly leapt into the vehicle and on to the sitting box, whilst at the same time engaging a gear by push the gear lever forwards and pushing the choke button back in quickly, to avoid flooding the engine with fuel.
This was virtually fool proof apart from days when there was a covering of ice on the ground. On those occasions one went back to bed, because as soon as the gear lever was pushed forwards the rear wheel would slide on the ice and all hell could ensue, due to the lack of weight.
I completed my frame building, with assistance from my friend and his brother-in-law, who also happened to be an engineer “employed by the country's top motor car and aero engine manufacturer.”
Reynolds 531 tubing was used and was brazed rather than welded and the finished frame could easily be lifted and held up with one hand. A set of wheels and tyres, brakes, and a steering device along with a suitable fuel tank and something to park ones buttock on completed the job, and off I went Kart Racing.
In the later '60s the vast majority of karts were what was called Class 4. This was powered by a Villiers two stroke engine up to 200cc . There was a Class 4 Super for “specials”. There were other classes for karts with different sized engines but they were very much in the minority. Tuning of the engines was permitted by what ever method one desired other than enlarging the cylinder size (swept volume to the nerds).
I think it would be half way through my second year of karting that three of us from the Thirsk club went to a weeks racing event in the Isle of Man. One afternoons racing was round the roads in Ramsey, another was round the “Southern Hundred” circuit down in Castletown, and of course a race round part of the old T.T. course for “sidercars”, which included the start/finish straight on Glencrutchery Road. The Class 4 karts were clocked at over 100mph. The Class 4 Super chaps at 112 mph.
Back to Scootercar matters. Some time after the IOM trip I had gone down to Malcolm's to do something or other. When I arrived I found him and his brother-in-law working on an engine and gearbox on a bench. Malcolm had the cylinder in one hand and was measuring its inside diameter with a micrometer with the other, with a very disappointed look on his face. I questioned him about his disappointment. It transpired that had bought a new over sized piston and was going to get his brother in law to rebore the cylinder to take the over size piston. His anguish was that the the cylinder had already been rebored and any more would take it over the allowed size.
After viewing the problem from every possible angle we came to the conclusion that the cylinder in my Scootercar would probably be its original one and would therefore stand to be bored out to take the new piston, and comply with the racing requirement, and the piston and cylinder from Malcolm's kart engine would go into my Scootercar and improve its performance.
It took just over an hour to effect the change over. The increase in performance of the Scootercar was not just down to a lift in compression. The tuning of a two stroke engine involves alterations to the inlet port, the transfer ports and the exhaust port and all this had already been done. What a transformation. It was now a matter of trying to keep the speed down rather than what it was like prior to its organ transplant.
Probably the day after the transplant I had pulled up at some traffic lights, in the inside lane. Seconds later a Jaguar pulled up along side and stared down at me in disdain. As he turned away the lights changed and I put my foot down and drove away. He passed me fifty or sixty yards up the road road and gave me the benefit of a dirty scowl.
I was forced to smile when I was in a shop in the village when the district nurse, who did not know me, was in front of me in the queue, and said to another woman in the queue, “Do you know who it is that is speeding round the village in an invalid carriage?”
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