early walkabout, sunday morning, mug of tea in hand, it's the best time of the day at the festival, general public not allowed in yet and just a scattering of bleary eyed, beery breathed 'weekender's' staggering around trying to find the bog / greasy breakfast van / ibuprofen / welly emporium, i chance upon the mighty 'thor', the famous jap engined / norton framed sprinter, built by francis williams using a combination of a manx norton frame from the early '50's, lock-up srtut's, early norton 'box and a v-twin jap engine, 994cc, 14:1 compression ratio and twin magneto's, it pushes out a really healthy 95bhp at 6500rpm and originally ran around 11.5 second's in the standing quarter on nitro in it's prime, to put that in perspective, i was running 11.8 second standing quarter's on my suzuki gs 1000 in the 'superbike' magazine series back in the early eighties, that's thirty year's after this beast was streaking up the strip .3 of a second faster than me, respect due.......
You talented, multi layered old bastard !! Sub twelves in the early eighties on a bloody GS, next you'll be tellin us it was the shaft version . . . mind you Lovey, the chance of it shoving a rod and slug through your groin region was probably a little less than with Francis' nitro jigger . . . it's the first close up I've seen from behind the tank, well done mate.
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