Starting in the early hours of Friday, August 4th, Jake de Rosier had a last fling at Brooklands before sailing for America the following day. He successfully set new Class E (1000 cc solo) records for the flying-start kilometre and mile with speeds of 88.77 mph and 88.23 mph.
During the evening of the same day Jake was the guest of honour at a farewell dinner held at Frascati's Restaurant in London by H. H. Collier senior, founder of the Matchless concern. There Jake tried to persuade Charlie Collier to undertake racing in the States, but to no avail.
The Saturday saw Jake's departure and, at Brooklands, a further unsuccessful attempt on the Class C hour record, this time by Lieut. R. N. Stewart (493 Trump-JAP).
August Bank Holiday Monday, August 7th set the scene for the customary monthly BARC meeting at the track. Unfortunately only one motor cycle event was included: a Short Handicap over 5 � miles. In this Stanhope Spencer (499 Rudge) led the field home, pursued by A. J. Sproston on a similar machine. Jack Haswell (499 Triumph) finished a close third. The two Collier brothers were heavily handicapped and unable to get into the placings. Contemporary race reports, unfortunately, give no race speeds.
Charlie Collier breaks Jake's records
Everyone was taken aback on Friday, August 11th, when Charlie Collier went out on his 998 cc Matchless-JAP and blasted wide open Jake de Rosier's "impregnable" records of a week before.
The Friday evening, fine with little wind, was ideal for record breaking. After riding a lap to get up speed, Charlie was all set for an attempt on the flying-start 5 miles. He broke the British record, held by Jake, with an average speed of 83.72 mph.
The next attempt on the agenda was that of the flying-start kilometre. Starting from the Fork, Charlie was soon going well, but after coming off the Members' Banking and entering the Railway Straight, his engine seemed to lose some of its hum.
Afterwards, it was learnt that the throttle lever had shifted after the machine had struck a bad bump on the track. But Charlie's time for the kilometre gave an average of 89.48 mph - a world record.
After returning to the Fork to shorten his driving belt, he made an attempt on the world's mile record, which was duly taken with a speed of 91.31 mph. This was the first time that any British machine had officially exceeded 90 mph, and with belt drive at that. He claimed that the machine had not been fully "run-in" for the earlier match races against de Rosier, it having had only about a week on the road beforehand. This fact saddened the two Collier brothers, who felt that their machine could, but for this, have beaten de Rosier. Whatever the cause, it had certainly now acquired some extra power.
W. ("Bill") Ellis, an indentured apprentice to the Collier concern at this time, used to take Charlie Collier's machines down to Brooklands for track testing, with another apprentice. Bill did the timing from the Members' Bridge, whilst his companion carried out the riding and running-in of the engines. When interviewed in later years, Bill recalled some interesting details of these racers. Thus twin carburetters were tried out at one stage, but proved unsatis�factory and were never used in an actual race. Also, graphite was used in the oil and, to assist engine starting, ether in the petrol.
[Back to Contents]