A look back at the 1921 BMCRC 500 Mile Race at Brooklands
By Cyril Posthumus
Proposals for a car race of this distance had first been made in 1914, and were revived soon after the first world war, but this bike event just "seemed to happen" with little advance campaigning. The organisers were the BMCRC, the big prize was the 200-guinea Miller Gold Cup, presented by Capt. Alistair G. Miller, and there were five capacity classes catering for just about everybody - 250cc, 350cc, 500cc, 750cc and 1,000cc. Despite the Isle of Man IT race held three weeks earlier, entries just poured in for the race on July 6th, 1921, 64 being accepted with a dozen late�comers as reserves.
With the exception of AJS and Scott, the cream of British bikes were there - Norton, Triumph, Zenith, Douglas, Matchless, Sunbeam, ABC, New Imperial and a dozen other makes. Not that this numerical supremacy guaranteed a British success, for the 1,000cc "big bike" class was a battle-ground for the two premier American makes, Indian and Harley-Davidson, which were very fast indeed.
As to the list of riders, it was full of names of fame and fame-to-be. Kaye Don was to handle a big Zenith twin, A.E. Miller himself a similar Martin, E.B. Ware, a future �Morganatic", had a Sunbeam, Col. R.N. Stewart, husband of Gwenda Stewart, the great lady driver, and proprietor of the Trump concern, was riding a Trump-JAP, G.A. (Tolly) Vandervell of subsequent Vanwall GP car fame was down for a 490cc Norton, and a Brooklands novice named F.W. Dixon was to ride a 998cc Harley-Davidson.
Needless to say the principal Brooklands specialists were there - Herbert Le Vack, Vic Horsman, Claude Temple, Jack Woodhouse, Reuben Harveyson, O.M. Baldwin, Jack Emerson, D.R. O'Donovan, Frank Longman and others. With the vast field of 64 bikes spread out over the broad Finishing Straight early on a July morning, Brooklands seemed really to have "arrived", with a classic long-distance race unfolding for the first time.
For some odd reason the powers-that-be settled on 7am as starting time, and public attendance was naturally very sparse at that hour, although plenty came along later. Different classes were distinguished by differently coloured flimsy jackets over their leathers, and the noise as the vast pack of two-wheelers, all with wide-open exhausts, were released must have startled many local residents from their beds that fine Saturday morning. Quoting The Motor Cycle: "The sharp crack of so many well-tuned exhausts, the clouds of Castrol mingling with the mists of early morning, the semi-comic aspect of so many running and leaping men, formed a spectacle which repaid the company for its early rising."
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