2 Brits

[Grumph]

does anyone have a pic of the Britten Robert Holden rode at the 1994 TT?

Farmer's bike was the CR&S livery, far as i know the others were in the std colours. Prep for the TT was so rushed that there was no time to do anything special, or so i'm told. Jason took over the ride so any pics of him are the Holden bike...

Amusing to read this thread, it still polarises people. Yes, without Kevin Grant you wouldn't see one running. The family are very much not interested, the team are still puzzled as to how it all happened, and don't really want to go back there.

[Grumph]

Further to the cost of the crank for the CR&S bike, I went back and read the comments by Broz about rebuilding the same bike in Italy. "It was impossible to get work done properly" He was damming about the "expert" machining available to Crepaldi.
Hardly surprising they're saying it was so expensive to get it done right.

[jellywrestler]

Farmer's bike was the CR&S livery, far as i know the others were in the std colours. Prep for the TT was so rushed that there was no time to do anything special, or so i'm told. Jason took over the ride so any pics of him are the Holden bike...

Farmer rode the CR&S bike, Nick jefferies bike was Blue and Pink, and Holden's one was blue but fitted with yellow guards etc from the CR&S spares.
From Memory Jason's bike was brand spankers out of the crate, after holdens had seized at signpost corner, and he elected not to ride it.

Jefferies had a suspension component snap along sulby straight the wheel ground through the mudguard and then wore away at the tailpeice, they patched that tailpeice and it's on the tepapa bike.

[Grumph]

You may be right. Hanna's book says Holden rode the bike again after the bore problem was sorted. Then the breather line wasn't connected to the catch tank and it put oil on the back wheel. Did one lap and pulled out. Then jason was approached to take over.
Ask jason next time you see him.

[jellywrestler]

You may be right. Hanna's book says Holden rode the bike again after the bore problem was sorted. Then the breather line wasn't connected to the catch tank and it put oil on the back wheel. Did one lap and pulled out. Then jason was approached to take over.
Ask jason next time you see him.

i was at the 1994 TT, holden sited lack of practice as a reason for pulling out. Fact was he didn't trust it sufficiently to be fair other manufacturers had had thirty years and hundreds of their bikes lap the course and had that experience, whereas the Britten didn't. I was preparing his bike when he turned up in the shed and i asked whether he was going to ride Monti's ducati factory bike (ballisdare monti -spelling guess had entered an 888 superbike and crashed his monster at glen helen and was out). Holden was off like a shot as he hadn't thought about it, till i mentioned it, got permission from the team but the TT commitee said he couldn't as he hadn't had enough practice.

i'm sure they pulled a new bike out for the hippy, probably on his second ride round the circuit, one ride both him and nick jefferies broke down within a mile or so of each other. they'd fitted new dunlop toothed cam belts, dunlop had supplied incorrect part number ones that would only run in a loop, not ones that would double back on themselves. they failed with one bike bending valves. (hence pulling out a new bike???)

As you can see i'm a Britten fan died in the wool, just have my reservations on some attitudes now.

[Grumph]

As i said, the Britten is still polarising opinion...easier to be a fan if you weren't in CHCH during the period and able to see the difference between the "One man in a shed" and the reality....When film of an interview with the track announcer at Daytona was shown at a canterbury club night, John at least was a bit apologetic "it makes a better story".....

[Stylo]

I remember giving JB a push with this outlandish looking bike in the early 90's ( '91?) at Ruapuna, after he asked me to give a hand. It wasn't a club race day or anything special back then, just an open gate thing back then. Didn't know him from a bar of soap

I was simply bored that Sunday and went out to Ruapuna for a look in my Nissan Sentra ..

Remember it bumped, stalled, farted and finally roared into life and took off. Full speed and something broke with the forks on the far side of the track, never saw it happen from my viewpoint.

Wish I had the camera, I was only there as a casual bystander, too late now, at least I helped get it going.