2003
The 2003 DJ Motorcycle Trial
By: Mike Milner-Smyth.
Article appeared in Classic Car Africa magazine Volume 8 number 2 winter edition 2003.
The 2003 DJ Motorcycle Trial, organised by the Vintage and Veteran Club, took place on 7-8 March. This was the 33rd running of this famous annual event, which is run in commemoration of the great road races that took place between Durban and Johannesburg from 1913 to 1936.
The event attracted 126 entries, slightly down on last year, but pleasingly there were 15 new riders. Four entrants from Zimbabwe and one each from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were welcome additions to the field. Clerk of the Course was the capable Betty Richmond, who has competed in numerous DJs and has been the organiser of several.
The rally HQ and starting point was again at the Sanlam Centre in Pinetown and, after the night stop in Newcastle, the finishing point was the James Hall Museum of Transport in Johannesburg. The 911 medical rescue service was in attendance, and its services were called upon once on the first day when a rider took a tumble and needed a short spell in hospital for observation.
The leader at the end of the first day was Alan Birch (1930 Norton Model 18), who was seventh last year and the outright winner in 2001. On the second day, Fritz Kraehmer of Pretoria (1935 Norton International) came through to beat Alan by two seconds, to give Norton its second win in the 33-year history of the event. Norton scored its first win in 2001, when it was also a 1-2.
Mention should be made of Hans Coertse who again rode the belt-driven and pedal-assisted 1909 Humber and finished in 89th place. There are naturally special awards for this type of effort. Previous winner Ric Lewis, on his faithful 74-year-old Sunbeam Model 5, received the “long distance” award, having ridden his machine 600km to the start.
Among the historic machines on the run were two Excelsior Manxmans from the Alan Crookes stable. The first was the 250 machine on which Roy Hesketh won the 1935 race, and the second was the 350 with which he came second in 1936, recording the fastest-ever race time of 6 hours 5 minutes and 2 seconds.
There were 103 classified finishers which reflected a drop-out rate of about 20 percent, which is to be expected owing to the age of the machines and the hot conditions usually experienced on the first day.
It was a pleasant surprise to see “Barney” Barnett of Durban among the spectators at the finish. Barney, who is 91, rode a 200cc Francis Barnett in the 1936 DJ and is one of only three surviving veterans of the original DJ races. The others are Allan Wilson of Somerset West and “Buddy” Fuller.
Reunited after 70 years… the famous Schlesinger Vase and the BSA Blue Star on which Burton Kinsey won the 1933 Durban-Johannesburg race. Also in the picture is “Spider” Wilbraham, chairman of the Cape Vintage Motorcycle Club, who rode a 1930 Ariel in this year’s Commemorative DJ Trial.
See “Rebirth of a BSA Blue Star” further down. Picture: Mike Milner-Smyth
Riding into Heidelberg.
Above left: Kevin Robertson (1936 Velocette GTP250), who finished third overall
Above right: Neville Linley (1936 Velocette MAC 350)
Right: Jim Williamson (1933/34 BSA Sloper 500). Pictures: Basil Chassoulas
Rebirth of a BSA Blue Star
By Mike Milner-Smyth
The Durban BSA agents S&W Killerby must have been “over the moon” when the two machines they had entered in the 1933 Durban-Johannesburg race came first and second.
Burton Kinsey, the winner, was then an apprentice at Killerby’s and was riding in his fourth DJ race, still only 21. It was also a case of “the boy beating the master”, for second home was Len Cohen, Killerby’s workshop foreman, just two minutes and 17 seconds behind. Kinsey averaged 58.41 mph and his net time of 6 hours 54 minutes and 50 seconds made him the first rider to beat the seven-hour mark in the race.
Nothing is known of the subsequent “life” of these machines but, at some stage, Roy Hicks of Pretoria acquired a large “basket” of BSA Blue Star components and suspected they may have been of 1933 origin. Telephonic contact had been made with Burton Kinsey, but attempts at identifying the machine were inconclusive.
Jim Williamson then acquired the collection of parts with a view of building up a machine for the 2003 commemorative DJ. All reference numbers were e-mailed to Eric Londesbrough, the overseas liaison man of the Vintage Motorcycle Club in the UK.
Eric’s investigations revealed that two Blue Stars had been shipped to Killerby’s in Durban in February and March 1933.
The first one, a Blue Star Special, was obviously allocated to Len Cohen and the second, which was fitted with a dynamo and electric lighting, was for use by Kinsey.
Jim Williamson’s collection of parts included three Blue Star petrol tanks in poor condition, and the soundest one was used in the restoration. The 1933 race reports mentioned that Kinsey had fitted a friction damper to his bike and, on his hitting a huge bump at Cato Ridge, the damper had turned inside-out and jammed against the tank. One of the spare tanks in Jim’s collection has two severe dents on the left-hand side! Jim completed the rebuild of the Blue Star in time for the 2003 DJ, but it could not take part because of delays in getting the registration and licensing done. It was nevertheless put on display at the prizegiving, proudly wearing original race number 42, and it created much interest.
The serial numbers reveal that the frame is from the second-placed bike, but that the engine, gearbox and electrics come from the winning machine.
To all intents and purposes, this bike is the 1933 DJ winner. We now have three DJ race-winning machines in the “DJ family” – Burton Kinsey’s BSA (1933), Roy Hesketh’s Excelsior Manxman (1935) and Cranley Jarman’s AJS (1936). One wonders if there are any others out there?
The 1933 DJ winner Burton Kinsey with his 500cc BSA Blue Star Special. This picture was probably taken outside the premises of S&W Killerby in Smith Street, Durban, after he had ridden back from Johannesburg.
Burton Kinsey: a DJ legend
By Ken MacLeod
The DJ was an annual 403-mile (645km) motorcycle road race held between the cities of Durban and Johannesburg from 1913 to 1936.
The two cities were then linked not so much by a main road as a bruising obstacle course of level crossings, farm gates, steep gradients, blind corners, corrugations, potholes and choking dust – which was almost as treacherous dry as after rain, hail or snow. The only tar was between Durban and Pietermaritzburg and a stretch near the finish at City Deep in Johannesburg.
The two-day handicap race, held on 30 and 31 May, was the most exciting event on the SA sporting calendar, attracting accomplished motorcycle aces, hopeful amateurs and adventurous youngsters alike.
One such was youthful Durban apprentice motor mechanic Burton Douglas Bentley Kinsey, who rode his first motorcycle at the age of eight and drove a side-valve, belt-driven Bradbury, capable of 55 mph, to school at Warner Beach when he was 14.
Kinsey had raced successfully in hill-climbs and grass-track events by the time he was entered in the 1930 DJ race by his employers, Durban motorcycle dealers S&W Killerby, on a standard 250cc ohv BSA.
“I had no money, but they saw I was keen and had potential,” Kinsey later recalled.
“The Lad”, as he was known at Killerby’s, started 15th out of 81 riders and finished fourth. Great stuff for an 18-year-old, whom one motoring critic described before the start as “a trifle young for such a tough race”.
In 1931, again mounted on a 250 ohv BSA, Kinsey took a tumble when forced off a blind corner by a car near Ladysmith, but pluckily he rode the final 43 miles to the compulsory night stop at Newcastle with a broken arm. Race officials refused to allow him to restart the next day.
“I cried. I was just a boy,” he recalled.
In the 1932 event, riding a 250 ohv BSA, he finished seventh. Finally, in 1933 he realised his ambition when, aged 21, he sped to victory on a 500cc ohv twin-port BSA, in 6 hours 54 minutes and 50 seconds – the first rider in the DJ to beat seven hours. It was a fine performance against such doughty rivals as Len Cohen, Charlie Young, Baby Scott, Chick Harris and Dick Wolfe.
There was a heart-stopping moment at Cato Ridge when an extra shock absorber fitted to his front forks for the rough roads turned inside-out, caught his tank and nearly made him crash. He eased it off, tossed it to the crowd and sped on.
At the Newcastle night stop, where he was sixth, Kinsey was alarmed to find his tyres almost worn through. Riders could only use the spares they took with them and Kinsey was carrying only a spare tube, chain connecting links, spark plugs and extra throttle wire. But the tyres lasted the next day as Kinsey “sitting on the tail pad, stomach flat on the tank, sped in hot pursuit”, to quote cartoonist and motoring writer Jock Leyden.
He took the lead near Heidelberg, 28 miles from the finish, and rode to victory through an avenue of cheering spectators, with a low-flying Tiger Moth escorting him overhead. His breezy victory speech prompted The Star reporter to quip: “He is as good on the mike as he is on the bike.”
Jock Leyden wrote years later: “Young he certainly was but those who knew Kinsey well could see he was a ‘natural’ – well balanced in every way, and with an ice-cool brain in every situation. Pencil-slim in build, he rode the rough roads with a grace that was almost uncanny.”
Burton Kinsey, one of the last links with the DJ, died in January 2002 at the age of 90.