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Old 01-11-2009, 09:16 AM
Fred Douglass Fred Douglass is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: P. O. Box 96, CATAUMET, Massachusetts 02, MA
Cobra Make, Engine: Butler with home-rebuilt 393 Cleveland stroker(Ya---ikes!)
Posts: 3,036
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Wink Kroikeys, Fred........

........that would entail my remembering something from 1965!!! Yikes! You must be correct. Somewhere in the slag-heap which passes for my study/studio there's a registration. I may dig a bit. If you don't hear from me for a few days, send an avalanche rescue team!! Ar-ar-ar.

I DO know my Velocette had the weird, hyper-long "petrol" tank, an even stranger seat (with a depression for yer nuts, yet!). You actually lay down on it----they even had a rubber pad where your chin rested on the tank just behind the central "tacho"! No speedo, remote oil reservoir, recessed petrol filler-cap. Ridiculous, tiny, down-angeled clip-ons. The real deal. I remember I had to "double-foot" on the starter sometimes. It must have had a bona fide 12.50:1 c-ratio....I used octane booster like mad. I bought it for $350 from an older guy who stated that he "was scared sh*tless of it"! Ar-r-ar.....I soon learned he was a wise man.

Silver paint. Black accents. Polished (non-stainless) steel and "aluminium" EVERYWHERE. A real show-boat, but Boy! Did it fly! Took it to Watkins Glen-----(a long rippah from Cambridge, I'll tell ya) for the 1965 Grand Prix. I had a big(gish) war-surplus tent, under which both I and the bike lived dipsomaniacally for 3 days in October. Even got maced by the Montour Falls po-lice during the Great Annual Sh*t-house fire. Bike looked hooty, with the big baggage roped to the back!

Great days. No helmets! Needed a wool watch-cap riding in Up-("out"?)state New Yawk, though.

Sure wished the USGP was still held there. I dated a gal named ____ Clute whose father invited his close friend Cam Argetsinger (RIP 2008) to dinner several times. Old man Clute owned a big share of the Watkins Salt Company.

Chow,
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Freddie
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