O Features archive - February 08
O The tough of the track
BSA’s racing triples
The sight and sound of BSA’s racing triples has to be a highlight of anyone’s motorcycling claims Andrew Wilson.
Short, but oh-so-sweet characterizes not only the racing career of the BSA-Triumph triples, but really the entire life of the Rocket 3 model.
As a card-carrying BSA devotee, their premature demise is of course a source of great chagrin to me, but it does have one thing in its favour – that the triples remain forever young, unblemished by the ravages of incremental tinkering and makeover.
As an example of what can go wrong, look at the Rocket 3’s square-on rival, the Honda CB750. What was a gorgeous and pure motorcycle at birth gradually got flabby and bland down the years until it just sort of melted away, subsumed into so many other models.
Not so our hero, for the Rocket 3 rose from birth in 1968 to world-beating form in BSA’s grand finale year of 1971. The whole BSA name then promptly sunk beneath the waves a few months later – racers, road machines and all. Fortunately we’re left with more than just a few memories, as you will see. So, let’s bask in those heady days just a bit longer so that the scene is properly set.
Many talented riders raced the R3 into the history books, and I was able to speak to two of the most famous. First is Dick Mann, one of the most versatile and successful American riders of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Dick was not only a circuit racer, but also highly placed in dirt track and motocross. Coincidentally having started his motorcycling career at Hap Alzina’s BSA shop in Oakland, California, Mann’s unique contribution to the Rocket 3’s success was his brilliant win at Daytona in 1971.
Torture
“It was the best bike of the era, very forgiving and it could sure race hard”, Dick told me. “Daytona was a torture test for engines, you really had to get it right between keeping a pace and not overstretching it.” The Daytona track is just over 4 miles in length, and 48 laps of it added up to 200 miles. “Don’t forget, in those days there was no chicane to slow things down, so it was full power on the back straight and both bankings”. In Mann’s view, “the handling and traction were the best”.
Dick is sanguine about the short life of the factory machines: “The Rocket 3 was probably the last world-class racing motorcycle that was just a road bike in racing trim. Even if the factory hadn’t been having all its business problems, the Japanese were piling in with homologation specials that were ground-up racers.”
- End of online sample -
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