Tom Loughridge's Race Days

Isle of Man TT - page 9

Having seen how quick Eddie Crooks’ TR250s were in the winter of 1971 I bought a TR250 motor and remote float carbs off Eddie. I had been racing a Bultaco TSS250. They handled superbly but were a nightmare to ride, unreliable and prone to seizing without warning. Broken primary chains and gearboxes and the gas pipe frames broke to pieces in the Isle of Man. Most Japanese bikes of the time were iffy in the steering department and TR250s were no exception. Rod Gould had put a Yamaha engine in a Bultaco so I had Jack machine build me an exact copy of the Bultaco frame in Reynolds 531 and had a copy of the large fibreglass tank made in aluminium. George Ratcliffe again did the motor and pipes.