Circulates throughout the world Established 1903

Straight from the plate: The Belgian GP, Spa Francorchamps 1933

...in the Senior class Hunt and Woods (who finished first and second) had to work a great deal harder than they might have reasonably expected, mainly due to the hard riding of FN jockey Noir, who harried the Norton duo relentlessly and though he couldn’t beat them (and indeed at the end of the 255 mile race was some way back) he’d at least given them something to think about, which was becoming a rarity in those days.

With all classes (500, 350, 250 and 175cc) run together, it was decided by Norton’s racing ‘head honcho’ Joe Craig that Simpson and Guthrie were to be the two 350cc runners – and they duly delivered what seems to have been a routine victory, Simpson setting a lap record early on before being passed by Guthrie on lap 13 (of 26, 241 miles) and never again headed. They finished in ‘formation’ barely a flag width apart, just as Hunt and Woods did in the 500cc category. Third in the 350cc class was local man Milhoux, who upheld the local maker’s honour, finishing ahead of the privateer Nortons and Velocettes; he (as Noir in the 500s) couldn’t have reasoanbly been expected to beat the all conquering works Nortons so, really, beating the privately owned jobs was quite an admirable achievement.

The 250cc class promised to throw up some interesting battles; mercurial Brit Wal Handley was there, this time on an Italian Moto Guzzi, while another UK ace in the twilight of his career, Charlie Dodson, joined Ted Mellors on New Imperials. Charlie Manders (Rudge) was expected to bring something to the party too.

From the start Handley, Mellors and Dodson were locked together, though Wal looked to be cornering harder and faster than the two New Imp men, while Manders’ Rudge cried enough. Handley held on, despite his gearchange mechanism playing up and his efforts to ‘fiddle’ while riding at pretty much full bore resulted in him painfully catching his fingers; he did the last half lap stuck in second gear, with Mellors finishing second while Dodson’s New Imp succumbed; third went to De Ridder on a Montgomery.

Tiddler class glory was claimed by the only non-British winner; veteran Belgian Ivan Goor, aboard a fast Italian Benelli, trumping Britain’s only representative Eric Fernihough, on his Excelsior-JAP.

‘Ferni’, more rememebered for his record breaking exploits at Brooklands, only finished a couple of minutes down, having been in the lead for much of the proceedings; at race’s end, his machine was covered in oil while he’d had a carburettor problem too.

The large crowd had enjoyed a good race day, which was mercifully without serious incident or accident; in practice, popular Belgian favourite Gregoire had fatally crashed his Sarolea, meaning a sombre start to proceedings.

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