Peter Williams needs your support

I believe that Peter Williams must have been an exceptional rider and a lot of that must have been due to his riding of the Tom Arter Matchless G50.

https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/...wagon-wheels-arter-matchless-g50-zmcz15jazhur

If you look at the history of the top guys, they usually started racing on top motorcycles. Cecil Sandford started on the MV 125, then moved to Mondial 250. Mike Hailwood's father bought him a Mondial 250 to start racing, then a couple of Honda racers. The Tom Arter Matchless G50 is probably something else.
Makes me wonder about the racing history of Tom Arter himself. The sort of knowledge needed to create an excellent race bike, does not come from nowhere.
I also sometimes wonder about Rex and Cromie McCandless and Colin Seeley and how they managed to get things so right
 
You’re right Al, PW grew up riding under powered bikes. So from the very beginning he was focused on aero dynamics, weight and handling.

It also helped shape his riding style.

These things accidentally made him the perfect guy to head up the JPN efforts later on!
 
I think these days, that many of the guys who ride modern superbikes, come up from motocross. A lot of them seem to believe you can but a foot on the road at high speed without twisting your leg and breaking it. There is much more to road racing than just riding the bike. I think Barry Sheene progressed by crashing Suzukis. The rider needs to shape what their mechanics do to the bike. I think that the young guy who crashed so badly in the NW200, then killed himself on the IOM, was a real tragedy. That should not happen. I raced regularly for several years when I was a kid and these days my bike helps me to be a fairly good rider. But with modern bikes, if it is wrong - it is extremely wrong.
In Australia, we've had a few ladies road racing on bikes which have been prepared for them. It is probably OK if the mechanic is very smart and questions them about what the bike is doing while they are riding. But with guys such as Peter Williams, they are much more hands-on and probably have a much better understanding of what needs to be done to make the bike better.
I don't believe in discrimination, but I have never known a lady road racer who could build her own motor and certainly not a complete bike. And many guys are no different.
 
There is another thing about Peter Williams - he is a professional engineer and probably has a better understanding of physics than the average guy. I know that when I work on my bike, I use a lot of the expertise I gained through my tertiary studies - especially maths and physics, and a bit of chemistry. There are not so many guys who can convert degrees of crankshaft rotation to distance from top dead centre.
 


Have you ever ported a two stroke and tried to do it by using degrees of crank rotation to work out where the positions of the tops of the transfer and exhaust ports should be ? The calculation involves the rod length and the stroke. The port timing is symmetrical on piston-port motors, but can be asymmetrical as with a four-stroke, if you have rotary disc valves.
 
I try not to have anything to do with two stokes. In fact, I would be happy for them all to be crushed, including my fuel injected paddock scooter.
 
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