Johnny Lockett

Record type: Motorsport Biographies

Biography: Mounts: Junior – Norton
Senior – Norton

Are 39, an electrical engineer, of Oxshott, Surrey. John Lockett, has had many years’ experience of the T.T. course. He competed in the Manx Grand Prix in 1936, 1937 and 1938, finishing fifth in the Junior the first year, third in the Junior the second year, and second in the Senior the third year. His first T.T. was the 1939 Junior, when he finished sixteenth after pushing his machine in from Governor's Bridge. He was out of the 1947 races owing to an injury sustained beforehand, but came back in 1948 as a member of the Norton team, finishing fourth in the Junior and retiring with a flat tyre in the Senior. He won the Junior Ulster in 1947, and the Belgian Senior in 1948, also finishing second in the Senior Ulster of that year.

Started off in 1949 by finishing second to Artie Bell in the North West “200”. In the Junior T.T. a month later he was 7th but in the Senior of the following Friday came home second Harold Daniell at 86.19 m.p.h.

He won his first race in 1950 – the 350 class of the Leinster “100” – at 80.83 m.p.h. and a week later, in the 500 class of the North West “200,” was second to his team-mate Artie Bell by about a machine’s length only, after a scrap that had lasted throughout the race.

In the Junior T.T. he was fourth on the third lap, but his next circuit was a slow one due to the exhaust pipe coming adrift and having to be fixed with wire, and he dropped off the Leader Board until the lap, when he returned in sixth place at 83.28 m.p.h. In the Senior race of the following Friday he was third on each lap except the second, and finished at 90.37 m.p.h. His best lap was his last which he covered in 24 mins. 40 secs. at nearly 92 m.p.h.

His luck on the Continent was mixed. He retired in the 500 class of the Belgian and Dutch events with tyre trouble in each case, but finished fourth in the 350 class of the latter at 86.37 m.p.h. He was a finisher in both classes of the “Swiss” – sixth in the Senior and tenth in the Junior – but came back to high-speed form in the “Ulster” when he finished third in the 500 class at 98.46 m.p.h.

He finished second to “the Duke” in Monday’s Junior.
(TT Special, 6 June 1951, p.13.)

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