Geoff Stevens

This Page Takes A Brief Look At Wildcat Tuning By Geoff Stephens.

I started out working with Les Rafferty, the Rafferty Newman Wildcat Scooters engineer, from the late 60s till his death in 1977. I was involved in tuning, preparing and racing the Wildcat works race bikes.

My first race scooter was a new 1969 Vega converted to 125 with a 5 port race cylinder and my first race meeting was at Lydden in late ’69. I came very near to winning the 3rd race of the day. Due to my inexperience I let Nick Barnes beat me by a wheel over the line, he had a 125 GP before they were available in this country.

I rode the Green Meanie Group 6 race scooter for the last time at Lydden. Roly wanted to ride it as well as race the combo so I retired from racing and did full time development of these engines. We managed to be very competitive and win races in both classes.

Then Ray Kemp announced the TS1. I obtained one in 1984 and we started to develop it for the sidecar outfit. We were the first race team to win a race using a TS1 and then a championship. Roly also went on to win the Group 6 Specials championship on a TS1 all tuned and prepared by me. I also had help from an old tuning friend who was in his 70s – Ray Snowed, a very talented 2 stroke tuner and engineer who advanced my knowledge of 2 stroke engine dynamics.

As an aside I believe I invented the case reed engine induction system years before Yamaha used it on their race engines. I had mocked one up on a Lambretta crankcase, I should have patented it!

I believe I also did the first 186cc using a 64mm RD 400 Yamaha piston in one of my 150 race cylinders bored out. This was in the late 70s, I still have the cylinder piston and head to this day.

During these years many people asked for my advice particularly on carburation. I’ve had thousands of spark plugs thrust under my nose for my opinion on how their engines were running. I remember solving a fuel starvation problem on Ralph Remnant’s sidecar outfit at Pembrey when he started using a TS1. This long circuit with flat out in top gear straights and curves showed it up, he thought it was an ignition problem but it was fuel starvation caused by too low a head of fuel for a TS1. He fuel pumped the engine and the problem was solved.

I was involved in the International Scooter Race at Circuit Carole near Paris, named after a girl who was sadly killed in a motorbike accident. I became team manager and helped to get 1st, 2nd and 3rd for the English team - Simon Baker Taffspeed, Mike Davies MBD and Stuart Day.

In the 90s Roly and Pete retired from racing the combo and Green Meanie. Roly went on to passenger Ralph Remnant and to win championships with him until his sudden death of a heart attack aged 51.

I was also tuning Rod Robinson and John Barlow’s Group 8 sidecar as well as Kev Percival’s and helped them win championships. I also tuned the first auto sidecar racing outfit built by Gary Wells of Allstyles Scooters. It was competitive and he managed to win a race in his short race career.

There have been many engines of race scooters that I have helped to improve, too many to remember them all over the 40 years of involvement in scooter racing at the highest level in this country. Probably the single most successful was Mark Caldecutt’s Group 10 70cc Zip SP Auto. Mark was a phenomenal rider once he gained experience. In my opinion the best solo scooter racer I’ve ever seen. He won a great many races on this scooter I tuned and prepared for him with him learning from and working on it with me. He amassed 5 Group 10 championships, 2 overall British Scooter championships and in one season he won 17 races in a row – the only thing that stopped him winning his 6th Group 10 championship and 3rd overall British Championship in a row was an emergency hernia operation. This put him out of racing for 2 months and cost him the championships he deserved but as they say “That’s Racing”.

I still get asked for advice if I go to a race meeting and will help on any problem I believe I can understand.

I don’t know it all and I am still learning at 63 years young....

Hampshire Union Race Team

Hampshire Union Scooter Club was formed in the mid sixties by a group of scooterists and one of these was to be my future brother-in-law David Bowen.

This group had broken away from a Portsmouth club and initially called themselves The Portsmouth Rebels.

I became involved with Hampshire Union through David who was racing Wildcat scooters supplied by Rafferty Newman. I started going to race meetings (high speed regularity trials as they were known back in 1968) just to help out.

Other prominent members early on were Pete Hockley, Brian Birchett and Tim Manhire. The ladies of Hampshire Union included Pete’s wife Val and Brian’s wife Sue.

The club was supported by Les and June Rafferty and Ian Newman. Les Rafferty was the Wildcat engineer and he and two of the Rafferty Newman mechanics (Dudley and Raggy) were competitors at the race meetings.

I started to race for Hampshire Union at the last meeting of 1969 at Lydden Hill in Kent. Pete Hockley, who was a very fast rider, ended up being the joint scooter racing champion of that year along with George Pierce of Bromley Innocents. The Bromley Innocents were considered to be the top club at the time so this was a great achievement by all involved at Hampshire Union.

Pete Hockley who was also a Rafferty Newman mechanic, built the first racing scooter kneeler sidecar outfit during these early days of Hampshire Union and did very well with Dudley as his partner. The club expanded in the late sixties/early seventies and some notable names include John Barlow, Pete Hinsley, Alan Crickmore, Tony Wilcox and Dave Tooley who all became sidecar champions.

Membership ebbed and flowed over the years and we saw Graham Oliver become Group 5 Specials champion, Dave Hayward the Group 6 Specials champion and Hampshire Union become the National Scooter Racing Club Champions in the late seventies. Members at this time also included Graham Richmond, Chris Harley, Steve Collett, Richard Arm and Kenny Stratton.

I became group 3 champion in 1977 but sadly my friend Les Rafferty died of a heart attack that year aged 48 and did not live to see me lift the trophy having used the engine so expertly tuned by him.

Hampshire Union continued to race on into the eighties and nineties and team member Steve Ives won the Group 3 and Overall British Championship.

Another top rider was Roly Caldecutt  who went on to become sidecar champion with Pete Hinsley as passenger. Roly also became passenger champion on numerous occasions while still a member of the club but partnering Ralph Remnant of Taffspeed. Roly also became the Group 6 Specials Solo champion.

Roly’s son Mark started to race and eventually won the Overall British Championship twice and dominated the Group 10 Auto Class for nearly 6 years into the 21st century.

Other notable members in the later years were Kev Percival with passenger PJ who became Group 7 and 8 sidecar champions and Gary Wells who built the first Auto sidecar to win a race and who had the record for the number of different passengers – Simon Hall, Robby Wells, Tony Humphries. This might have had something to do with losing them off the back or launching them through the air which didn’t inspire their confidence in his driving abilities!

Rob Robinson with his passenger John Barlow were another sidecar pairing that became sidecar champions for Hampshire Union. John made a comeback after nearly 20 years and really loved being involved once more.
Darren Blackburn also a member of the club became one of the top Auto racers and sprinters, strongly supported by his wife Jackie.

Sadly over the years we lost two more members of the club, my friend Roly Caldecutt who died of  a heart attack aged 51 and my brother-in-law David Bowen, who had got me interested in racing all those years ago, died of cancer at the age of 52.

Pete Hinsley and I carried on supporting Mark Caldecutt until 2005. Mark was helped with  sponsorship from Norrie Kerr of V.E. and was the last of a long line of illustrious people who raced, helped and supported Hampshire Union over the 40 years since the club’s beginning.

Scooter Clubs like old soldiers, never die they just fade away.

Apologies to any club members that I have failed to mention in this article but there have been so many over the years and my memory is not what it was!

Author: Geoff Stephens

Date: 05/11/2008