Sunday, May 15, 2011

Dan O'Donovan on a c1920 Model 16H Norton


Roger:"The registration and the chain drive indicates a post-war event. From the registration and the riding number my best estimate is the 1920 Isle of Man TT where Dan was team manager."


Martin:"The interesting thing about this picture of O'Donovan is that it has a Leicester number. Look at page 62 of the Woollett book (above) and you will see the Norton camp at the 1920 TT. The bike at the front which isn't described in Woollett's caption belonged to Leicester motorcycle dealer Harold Petty and below is an extract of the Leicester county records showing the details of this bike which was finally scrapped in 1934, its last owner having had it attached to a sidecar, a sad end for an ex TT bike! .


Petty retired in the 1920 TT but Nortons did better than ever that year, coming 2, 4, 7, 8. 10, 11, 13 and 14, and four other Norton riders apart from Petty retired. 11th was Norman Black on the last Norton belt drive TT entry, a pretty good effort for his first ever TT ride, the start of a longish TT career through the twenties. The question I would want to ask about this picture is was this a Petty-owned (and hence Leicester registered) bike, and if so, why was O'Donovan riding it? I will get the entry from the Leicester public record office so we can see whose bike it was!! Possibly it was a bike ridden in the 1920  by a rider who retired and maybe D'Donovan rode it before or after the race, as he wasn't a rider himself by that time, his only TT rides being 1913 and 1914."

No comments:

Post a Comment