1950 Clubman Lightweight TT

Course name: Mountain (post 1914)

Course length: 113.25 miles (3 laps)

Description: Race report from the IOM Weekly Times 10 Jun 1950 (p. 8) below which is a full list of competitors:

Only Five Finishers

The Start Wednesday.

The first casualty of the lightweight, in which there were 14 starters, was B.J. Hargreaves (Velocette), who came off at Laurel Bank, sustained slight bruises and damaged his machine, and retired. A.J. Liddiard (Velocette) packed up at Brandywell on the first lap with engine trouble, and F. Desborough (Velocette) retired at the pits.
Fastest of the Lightweights on this first lap was F. Fletcher (Excelsior), with a time of 34 mins. 8 secs.,(66.33 m.p.h.), 47 seconds in front of the next man, A.J. Wellsted (Triumph), who was 26 seconds in front of the third man, D.W. Mustard (Velocette), who retired in Ramsey when he came off in Parliament Square there. He was OK, but some oil from his machine spilled onto the roadway, and before it could be cleared up R.W. Porter (Triumph) came off when he skidded on the oil, bent a mudguard but proceeded.
Fletcher retained his lead at the end of the second lap, 1min. 22secs. In front of Wellsted, and the leaders speed was exactly the same as on the first lap, 66.33 m.p.h. With Mustard out, L.C. Bolshaw (Triumph) came into third place, but on the next lap he disappeared from both the leader-board and race. He retired at the pits.
Fletcher carried on to win a well-ridden race at 66.89 m.p.h.,for three laps, over a mile per hour slower than the record winning time of 68.10 m.p.h. last year by C.F. Taft (Excelsior), but that was over two laps.
1950 JUNIOR CLUBMAN'S T.T.

Many Spills in Fast Race

Great Tussle Before Jackson Wins

From the first lap the Junior resolved itself into a tussle between the fastest of the B.S.A. riders. K.R.V. James took the lead on the first lap and held it on the second when he was closely challenged by B.A. Jackson. Who had been lying third, but jumped into second place and carried on to win.

There were 93 starters, including one Manxman, J.W. Moore (B.S.A.), and another competitor who could almost be claimed as Manx, M.R. McGeagh (B.S.A), who is a nephew of Dr McGeagh, of Ramsey. The men waited for the signal to start in lines of four, and similarly to their Senior colleagues they were dispatched in fours at 20 second intervals. As a matter of fact during the first circuit there were about 10 retirements all told. Sulby reported two crashes on this circuit. H.L Stephen (B.S.A.) came off and was subsequently taken to Ramsey Cottage Hospital for stitches to be put in one of his hands. J.F. Bean (B.S.A) also had the misfortune to come off, but he made some adjustments and carried on with the race. He came off again at Windy Corner and this time retired.
J.R. Clark (Douglas) came past the Start, the first man to finish the lap, but when the times were eventually painted up it was seen that K.R.V. James (B.S.A) was in the leading place. The first three men were the only competitors to finish the lap in the 30- minute class.
Fourth man was R. Jones (B.S.A), fifth Clark, sixth a tie between R.H. King (B.S.A) and W.F. Barker (B.S.A), both with a time of 31 mins. 53 secs. for the lap.

SECOND LAP

First retirement on this circuit happened to A. Klinge (B.S.A), who called it a day because of engine trouble at Union Mills. The faster men are still doing extremely well. All three called in for refreshments, and when the times were painted up it was seen that James still led the way by 16 seconds from B.A. Jackson (B.S.A). Ramsey reported that H. Vinall (B.S.A) had come off there, but had remounted and proceeded. On his second circuit Jackson had an individual lap time of 30 minutes 5 seconds, which seemed to be the fastest lap of the day so far. The Gooseneck telephoned in with the information that J. Cattrall (B.S.A) had come off there, but eventually resumed the race. While Cantrill was picking himself up, A.E .Heath (Norton) came along and had to be flagged down to give him warning that there was momentary trouble around the corner.

The fourth man was R. Jones (B.S.A) with J.R. Clark (Douglas) in fifth place and J. Difazio (Norton) sixth.
J.A. Ure (B.S.A) who had great difficulty in starting came into the pits at the end of this lap to make adjustments. He seemed to be having some difficulty, and was showing quite a lot of "lingerie" as the result of being off at the Governor's Bridge.
Spectators at the Start held their breath when J. Wade (B.S.A) just avoided a collision with A.G. Mollan (B.S.A), Wade was pulling away from the pits and Mollan was passing through at the end of the lap.

THIRD LAP

The leaders were all on their way to complete the third circuit when news came that A. Mcivor (Norton) had been off at the Nook, but was OK. There were bound to be changes on the leader board because Gooseneck had provided trouble for R. Jones, who came off at that point. He was fortunately unhurt, but the ominous "R" denoting retirement was painted up over his number on the score board. Subsequently it was learnt that the handlebar of his machine had broken into two pieces. It was obvious also that Jackson "put his skates on". He made up his 16 seconds time lag on James on this lap, and when the times were painted up it was seen that he had actually taken first place.
At the end of the lap McGuffie was still in third place, with Clark fourth, A.D. Brown (Norton) fifth, and P. Simister (Norton) sixth.

THE FINISH

Jackson went away at the Start of this last lap, with 13 seconds advantage over James. The progress of these two men was reported from different points of the course. As they started out, Jackson had given the thumbs-up signal to his pit attendant and James the thumb down signal, and so it was a forgone conclusion that Jackson was going to win. W.S.V. Leech (B.S.A) retired with a broken oil pipe on the Mountain, after having been dogged by bad luck throughout the whole race.

Jackson finished the course at five minutes past four, the winner of the Junior Clubman's T.T. He was also the first man to finish the race, which was a very great achievement considering he was not among the first men to be dispatched. Hard luck befell James, who had to pack up somewhere between Glen Helen and Handley's Corner with mechanical trouble.
R.J. Dear (B.S.A) bought "a packet of trouble " at the Bungalow on this circuit. He came off, and had cut his face. It was also announced that McGeagh had completed 3 1/2 laps of the course with only one gear. J.W. Moore (B.S.A) was still on the course at 4.15pm.

Competitors

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