Nearly Man – Vic Eastwood – photo by Harry Stanfield

Another print purchased by me as a 14 year-old from the back of Harry Stanfield’s green Cortina Estate. It used to be sellotaped to the front of my mum’s programme clipboard. Vic on the 1963 works Matchless with the 7R back wheel.

I first saw Vic at the inaugural Motorcycle Mechanics Pirbright 100 miler in 1960. As an 18 year-old he finished third behind Ken Heanes and Brian Leask, lugging 300lb plus of BSA Gold Star for 66 laps across the Surrey heathland. To my 12 year old eye this looked like a rider with potential. I was right. Works rides for AMC [ – as a 19 year old! ] and BSA followed. A string of solid results in the ACU 500 Star. A 500 British GP win for Husqvarna in atrocious conditions at Farleigh in 1968 – and then disaster. A crash at a frozen ITV meeting at Hawkstone in December 1968 lead to a badly smashed knee and well over a year away from racing. The potential never fulfilled?
What attracted me in the first place was the sight of so slight a body in total command of that whopping Matchless. Predecessors Geoff Ward and Dave Curtis were muscular 14-stoners. Eastwood did it – like Don Rickman – with timing, balance, poise – and experimentation. I remember watching him at Mortimer’s Padworth Park circuit working a fairly wide 180 degree corner. Per the Jeff Smith textbook there was the one correct mathematical solution involving a parabolic entrance and exit to the corner, just clipping the apex, and JVS did this lap after lap. Not Vic.
Vic went in wide, and came out tight.
Then he went in tight, and came out wide.
Then – as he had the ability, a bit like similarly statured road racer Bill Ivy, to hang off the side of the bike – he went in tight, spun on his foot, and came out tight.
He didn’t win the race, but it was fascinating to watch analysis translated into action.

Some results.
Like Don Rickman, Vic was an individual MXDN winner – at Markelo in 1967.
Vic was a GP winner – at Farleigh in 1968, and in the same year at the Luxembourg GP.
World Championship – again the parallel with Don Rickman. In 1965 Vic scored an equal 32 points with Rolf Tibblin, but Rolf nailed the third spot as he had the GP win.
ACU 500 Star? – Vic was runner up in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1975. I suspect 1963 was the most galling. Not only did damn near winning the title not secure a place in that year’s MXDN team, at the last round at Elsworth Lawn Farm, Vic needed the win to secure the championship. He was more than capable having seen everyone off at the Southend round. Jeff Smith was not at the Cambs GN due to his selection for the 1963 Trophee des Nations team, but offered a £25 bounty to anyone who could beat Eastwood – which Andy Lee duly did. Ouch! – and you thought Alex Ferguson invented mind games.

And like Dave Curtis, Vic possesses an ISDT gold medal.

In the last analysis Vic Eastwood was akin to my favourite footballer – Eddie Gray of Leeds United. Both – despite huge talents – never achieved true greatness due to leg injuries. Vic’s at Hawkstone in 1968. Eddie ripped a thigh muscle before he even signed for Leeds, It never properly healed, and he carried it throughout his career.

Two final Vic memories:
Vic winning the 1968 Battle of Newbury on the BSA going at such a lick it sounded like a two-stoke and I couldn’t see how he was staying on the track. And then BSA sacked him.
Vic practising at the Beenham Park Championships in the autumn of 1967. By then an individual MXDN winner, he eased through the mud hole, coasted up the straight, stood up on the pegs and blipped the throttle on the apex of the right hander before Larcom Leap. The rear end stepped out on the uncut grass/green ice, and Vic was unceremoniously dumped on his backside in the middle of the track.

Oh, Lord. If it could happen to that year’s MXDN winner…

Posted by ericmiles47 on 2015-07-08 19:51:38

Tagged: , Vic-Eastwood , Eastwood , G80CS , MX-Matchless , Harry-Stanfield

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