Benutzer:Pessottino/Jock West
John Milns „Jock“ West (* 28. Februar 1909 in Belvedere, Kent, England; † 6. Juni 2004) war ein britischer Motorradrennfahrer.
Leben
the last surviving rider to have won a major motorcycle grand prix during the 1930s, and the only non-German speaker to have won a grand prix on a 500 cc BMW.
as a boy dressed in a kilt by his fiercely Scottish mother, the son of a market gardener who grew peaches.
West continued with AMC until 1961, when he became sales manager for Peter Agg, who was importing the Italian Lambretta scooter. After two years he rejoined BMW.
His wife died in 1997, just weeks short of their 60th wedding anniversary. West continued an active life, which included two rounds of golf a week. He is survived by his son.
Karriere
He was introduced to motorcycling by a neighbour's son who had a 211 cc two-stroke Levis. When he was 14 Jock bought the Levis and progressed through a series of second-hand machines to a 350 cc Zenith, which he entered for his first race at the Crystal Palace track in south London in 1927. The debut was not a great success: "I crashed, fell on my head and woke up in the paddock not knowing where I was."
West concentrated on grass-track racing on the fast and bumpy circuits in south-east England, including the then unsurfaced Brands Hatch, making his name on Ariels prepared by Walter Hartley, who was Plumstead's agent for the make.
His grass-track successes on Ariels prompted the Birmingham factory to sponsor him with a new machine in the 1931 Manx Grand Prix, the race around the Isle of Man TT circuit for amateur riders. The crankshaft broke on the first lap, but West returned the following year riding an Ariel built up from bits and pieces found in Hartley's workshop. He crashed in practice, but did well in the race until the engine failed on the last lap. He finished 20th.
In 1933 West moved up to the TT, riding a three-year-old overhead camshaft 350 cc AJS; a broken inlet valve did for his chances, but he impressed the Triumph boss, Edward Turner, who hired him for the event the next year.
Teamed with the experienced TT riders Ernie Thomas and Tommy Spann, West was determined to do well, but the race proved something of an epic. "I arrived at Ballacraine [a sharp right-hand bend seven miles from the start] on a wet road but without my bike," he recalled. "I picked it up, restarted and jumped on, only to find that the right footrest had broken off in the crash. With my leathers torn and my right foot trailing I set off, only to be black-flagged at Ramsey." After officials had checked the bike, he was allowed to continue, but was stopped three more times and eventually forced out of the race by a nail in his front tyre.
He finished 15th in the 350cc class of the TT in 1935, and pushed home to finish 8th in 1936. Meanwhile he completed a five-year apprenticeship in heavy engineering with GEC, before becoming sales manager of the new BMW import business. West commuted from his home in Kent to Isleworth on a 750 cc BMW, picking up numerous speeding tickets.
BMW had recently introduced a new grand prix machine with a supercharged flat-twin overhead camshaft 500 cc engine and an advanced frame with a hydraulically-damped telescopic front fork. Its first major success came when Otto Ley won the 500 cc class at the Swedish Grand Prix in 1936.
The next year BMW sent a factory bike with mechanic over for West to ride in the TT. He had earlier passed an initiation test in Germany, where he rode a similar machine during the practising for a German national event at Hanover under the critical eye of the BMW team manager, Sepp Hopf.
BMW insisted that West finish the race rather then go for glory. So he took things easily, only to run out of fuel on the last lap. He pushed in and finished sixth. Pleased by the result, the Munich factory agreed to back West in the ultra-fast Ulster Grand Prix, then run on the Clady circuit, which included a bumpy seven-mile straight.
"The roads on the old Clady circuit were narrow and heavily cambered which made things tricky in the pouring rain," West recalled. "I worked my way through and at the end was in the right place." He completed the 12-lap, 246-mile race in two hours, 41 minutes and four seconds, at an average speed of 91.46 mph, with the fastest lap at 93.65 mph. It was the first time a non-British machine had won the big class at the Ulster.
In 1938 BMW fielded a team of three in the Isle of Man - the rising star Georg Meier supported by West and the Austrian Karl Gall. But Gall was eliminated by a crash while practising and Meier retired on the first lap with plug trouble. West had a steady ride to fifth place and with Gall injured he went to the Belgian Grand Prix to support Meier. There he finished third, beaten only by Meier and the Norton star Freddie Frith.
Later in 1938, West recorded his most important win for BMW. While Meier concentrated on the German Grand Prix, BMW sent a bike and mechanic to the Ulster for West to ride, six days after the German event. Again the race started in wet weather but when it stopped raining, West went for it. There was great celebration when he lapped at a record 98.93 mph, which also beat the records at the rival circuits in Belgium and Sweden. He eventually won the race at an average of 93.98 mph.
In 1939 West again supported Meier at the TT, where the German won the 500 cc Senior TT with West in second place. But his hopes of winning the Ulster for a third time were dashed when BMW failed to supply a machine. Again the Ulster followed the German Grand Prix, and in an effort to persuade BMW to let him have a bike for the Irish event Jock answered an SOS from BMW to ride in Germany, after both Meier and his new team-mate Ludwig Krause had been injured during the Swedish Grand Prix. West was right on the tail of Dorino Sorafini on the supercharged four-cylinder Gilera when a terrible vibration in his accident-damaged bike forced him to pull up.
By then it was mid-August, and West rushed back to Munich where the BMW factory pulled strings to get West and his wife on one of the last flights out of Germany to England. Throughout his career with BMW, the factory never paid him.
During the war West served in the RAF, rising to Wing Commander. He specialised in running factories where crashed and damaged aircraft were rebuilt for combat; he was awarded the OBE. After demob he joined Associated Motor Cycles as group sales director.
AMC were then developing a new twin-cylinder 500 cc racer, known as the "Porcupine" because of the spiky cylinder-head finning, which West was the first to ride. It had been entered for the 1947 TT but was only just ready in time - the first test was when West rode it down the A2 Rochester road on Whit Monday.
In the race itself West suffered all sorts of teething troubles, yet again pushing home to finish 15th - albeit with the consolation of the third fastest lap at 84mph. He finished third in the Ulster.
At the Ulster Jock disputed the lead until he was slowed by ignition problems. With his 40th birthday looming, he quit racing at the end of that season. At the Montlhery circuit near Paris, he had one last fling on the Porcupine, when he, Les Graham and the French ace Georges Monneret took six 500 cc world records, ranging from the two-hour at 108.49 mph to the five-hour at 107.12 mph.
Weblinks
- [1]
- Pessottino/Jock West auf der offiziellen Website der Motorrad-Weltmeisterschaft (englisch)
Kategorie:Mann
Kategorie:Geboren 1909
Kategorie:Gestorben 2004
Kategorie:Motorrad-Rennfahrer (Vereinigtes Königreich)
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