Rodney Anshaw, based in Muswellbrook NSW, started historic racing in 1983 on a resurrected BSA powered Triumph X Slider owned by Ian Taylor. He used this bike for four meetings. In this time he assembled the parts to build his own bike, a wide-line featherbed rolling chassis with AMC gear box and 350 Iron Barrell BSW motor which was raced until 1992.
After riding a road going sidecar for around six years in the late 70’s / early 80’s, racing was inevitable. Again Ian Taylor tuned up a A10 BSA powered outfit in 1985 which Rodney rebuilt and raced for two and a half years.
Building his own outfit started in 1987 with all parts, except high wearing components, being purchased at swap meets. His outfit started with a 1958 600cc Norton Dominator engine mounted in a wide line copy frame with a rigid read end. The frame started as three lengths of seamless hydraulic tubing that was sent to Brine Pane (Tranzac Exhaust Brisbane) to bend into shape before Rodney jigged it up and got a local mate to tig weld it all together.
The build was finished in March of 1988 – in the two weeks Rodney had off when his second child was born. It still looked very crude when it debuted at Amaroo Park in May of 1988, where inexperience in working with the Norton twin engine showed with issues occurring throughout the meeting. Along with passenger John Nealy Rodney did finish the races they got on track for, but problems like blown head gaskets prevented them form taking part in all events that weekend.
Late the following year (1989) Rodney upgraded to a 650cc engine, keeping the 600 as a backup engine. Late 1990 / 91 he upgraded again to a 750cc engine, keeping the 650 as a backup. Since then the 750cc is the staple engine with many modifications, the most complex being a three bearing crank which allows the engine to rev well in excess of the ‘safe Norton limit’.
Chassis upgrades from the original build have included converting the rigid rear end to swing arm, 13 inch rear wheel (car tyre) to Triumph and conical hub with muffler to a Manx look-a-like. Upgrades to the front end, built by Doug Chivers, have seen another Triumph conical hub reshaped into Manx style and BMW two break plate, wider shoes and girdle plate.
Since 1995 the setup has remained mostly the same, just finessed. Modifications are made to suit different tracks, conditions and passengers.
Rodney has worked on building new race engines, including a three crank engine, but has always stuck with 750cc.
He has raced across Australia, including tracks such as Amaroo Park, Oran Park, Eastern Creek, Lakeside, Broadford, Philip Island, Mallalar, and Wanneroo. He held the Bob Javis Perpetual Trophy for two years and has contested numerous state title rounds.
In 1998 along with other NSW outfits Rodney and passenger Evelyne Scholz set out for the Australian Titles – only to arrive on the other side of the country to find out only five outfits had entered, one short of the six required to run the title race. The duo drew the attention of commentators over the weekend, but it unfortunately it all went up in a could of dust when the primary drive chain broke in what should have been the title race – it is often joked that this is the one time Evelyne knew to kept her mouth shut and just walked away from the stranded outfit and bloody pissed off rider.
It was in 1999 that Rodney ran his last race, taking part in a handful of ride and training days the following years before being put up completely due to family commitments becoming more time consuming.
The decade and a half he raced regularly, Rodney had a number of passengers, including; Mat Hartup, John Nealy, Evelyn Hughes, Vincent Keir, Jerise Grafe, Jim Kiem, Jim Bradford, Kelvin Anshaw, Noel Wheeler, Glen Rolfe and Evelyne Scholz.
The outfit started out racing under the number 162, but dropped back to 62 when officials requested only two digit numbers. When making its return in 2019 there was already a 62 running in Queensland so Rodney reverted to 162.
Grids were often made up of around a dozen outfits in those days, competitors on the track but most were mates in the pits, always happy to help if they could.
In 2018 Rodney got the outfit back down, inspired by a man he met in hospital of all places after a knee replacement. He had also by chance come across a classic race meeting in Stanthorpe Queensland – The Big Chill, while traveling with wife Kerrie. After a lot of work to get everything running again in July 2019 the outfit was back on track and turning heads at The Big Chill. The race meeting came to an unceremonious end when they ran out of track trying to make a pass and the 162 ended up on the grass and into fencing. Both rider and passenger walked away from the incident, but the sidecar was done for the weekend.
The pandemic impacted return to racing has been not as busy as Rodney may have liked, but he has had the opportunity to run at Carnell Park, Wakefield Park, and Pheasants Wood. There have been some teething issues getting the outfit going again but persistence will pay off and all we can hope is to see more of the classic outfits making their return to the track to make for better racing.
This outfit has come back, where the hell are the rest of the field? Hopefully not scrapped – get them out and play!
ALMCC 