RACER TEST
P92
NORTON MANX 500 DAYTONA
rards or Devils Elbow, however,
the plunger-sprung Garden Gate
frame was much less at home,
weaving and hacking about if
I tried to drive through these
bumpy turns with the power hard
on. At first I thought I might remedy that by simply torquing down
the central steering damper - un-
til I discovered that it was already
at its tightest.
The fact of the matter is that
the extra weight and power of
the double-knocker Manx engine
was really too much for the venerable plunger chassis when they
were introduced to each other
from 1950 onwards, especially
on twisty tarmac-laid turns. The
sweet-handling
McCandlessbred Featherbed frame changed
all that, though – which is probably the reason that, doubtless
prompted by Harley-Davidson,
the AMA wouldn't let Norton use
that until 1954.
The problem is that the Norton's plunger frame has no rear
damping, only springs inside the
plunger boxes, which made it terribly unstable over the bumps,
pogo-ing the back wheel all the
way around and heading toward
a terminal tankslapper if I hadn't
had the good sense to ease the
throttle, and let it all recover.
Okay, Daytona maybe wouldn't
have seen the same problem arising, but my admiration remains
sky high for those brave men like
Geoff Duke and Co. who won TT
races on such an evil-handling
bike.
And the guys like Klamfoth,
Mathews and their cohorts who
raced these bikes to such serial
success were serious heroes,
too. It's ironic in a way – we think
of Manx Nortons being the ultimate single-cylinder Grand Prix
racer, thanks to Duke's succession of Grand Prix victories and
trio of World Championships
aboard the Featherbed-framed
bikes. But in spite of handling on
tarmac like the Garden Gate it
was named after, on the Daytona
Beach Course its predecessor
turned out to be the ultimate sand
racer! Who'd have thought it? CN
