Stealing Speed by Mat Oxley

Sometime Sideburn contributor, Mat Oxley, has self-published/reprinted one of his books, and it's a goody. It's the story of Walter Kaaden, the Iron Curtain, WWII flying bombs, spies, defections and the Japanese buying German technology to finally build a really successful two-stroke.
Read a very good related post by our own Mick P - Walter Kaaden and Two-Strokes

Here's what Mat says about the reprint...

Finally reprinted in HARDBACK after several years out of print. Current best prices on Amazon for secondhand copies of Stealing Speed are £73 for a paperback and a ridiculous £640 for a hardback! This is why I decided to reprint the book, so you can once again buy it at a reasonable price.
The book itself costs £14.99. I have included post and packing in the prices on this site, so the UK total is £17.79, EU £21.85 and USA/Australia etc £25.99.

Get a copy direct from Mat at Stealing Speed. G

What it's all about

Gary Nixon. On it. Photographer unknown. This is why people, even rank amateurs like us, start racing flat track. One day, sooner or later, you get one to sample one of these. For some it's in their first race, some, like me, have to wait a lot longer before years of road conditioning can be ignored.

Read Mat Oxley's great interview with Gary Nixon, illustrated by Dan Mahony's fantastic photos, in Sideburn 8. G

Gary Nixon For President

Mat Oxley writes an indepth feature on the legend of Gary Nixon for Sideburn 8. Classic archive photos by Dan Mahony. BP

An Age of Superheroes

This book is so good I have to hide it or I don't get anything done. Mat Oxley is my favourite writer (working in the subject motorcycles). He's been covering GPs, at the tracks, since the 1980s, as a rider he nearly won the Suzuka 8-hour, and did win a TT (250 production class), and he's even written for Sideburn.

For this book he interviewed Schwantz, Rainey, Lawson, Doohan and Gardner - the Superheroes who wrestled the most vicious road racing bikes in history. He also raided the archives of the best GP photographers of the era. The interviews form captions for the incredible photos. I pick it up, idly, then force myself to put it back down 35 minutes later having not done any work. It contains more than those five superheroes, though. There are amazing images of Randy Mamola, Kenny Roberts, De Radigues, Cadalora, plus the bikes, girls, team kit...
Put it on your Christmas list. And our mate Kar Lee did some illustrations for it too.
Amazon are selling it cheap. GI

Walter Kaaden and two-strokes

Given the interest in the two-stroke gif in an earlier post, it seemed appropriate to mention Walter Kaaden, the German engineer responsible to a very large extent for the development of the
expansion chamber.

Kaaden (1919-1996) was a rocket scientist during WWII and after the war was an engineer with MZ motorcycles, by then trapped in the new East Germany. With pitiful resources and materials but huge intellect and ability, he recognised the potential of harnessing the pressure waves in an exhaust to not only aid the clearance of burnt gasses, but also to pressurise the combustion chamber while the exhaust port was still open, returning what would have been wasted charge back into the cylinder. His discoveries and their application on grand prix motorcycles brought MZ success that belied their humble resources and restrictive circumstances. All this is dealt with in great and entertaining detail in Mat Oxley's book, Stealing Speed, which we blogged about just over a year ago. Read it.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a story. More than ten years ago now, I was lucky enough to interview Alan Shepherd (he died in 2007) an English grand prix racer who rode for MZ during the Sixties. The main story I was chasing was of his dramatic Boy's Own adventures at the 1964 US GP at Daytona, involving Kaaden, and maybe I'll go into that another time. However, during the interview, he gave me this glimpse of Kaaden's genius in action:

"One year at the TT, I think it was 1963, I ran through the pits just once on the 250 MZ. Walter questioned me when I got back, and bear in mind he'd only heard the bike for a few seconds. 'Alan, your 250,' he said, 'Are you confident that it is in good order?' Well, at one stage in the acceleration the engine sounded slightly duller than at other stages, but that was all. In this practice I was top of the leaderboard, or second, and was perfectly satisfied.

"Walter said to his mechanic, 'Please check the timing on the right hand cylinder, if you find it to be exactly correct, and the points gap to be exactly correct, check the carburettor and if you find nothing, please change the needle position to one notch higher.' In the evening practice the slight dullness had of course gone and my times were much improved because of the cleaner acceleration. How did he know it was the right-hand cylinder? That man was absolutely amazing. A genius in every respect." MP

Stealing Speed

Mat Oxley is the best bike sport writer working in English. He contributed a Kenny Roberts Story for Sideburn 2, and has just had a book published about the amazing story of Nazi flying bomb engineer, Walter Kaaden, who - through his knowledge of pulse jets - created the two-stroke expansion chamber (as seen on Rainey's bike below). Ernst Degner was Kaaden's rider. Until he defected to Suzuki and changed the course of motorcycle history. I've read some of the book and it's fantastic. Buy it here.
Coincidentally, Kar Lee, who designed Sideburn's website, designed the book's cover. GI

Mat Oxley's kitchen cupboard

Mat Oxley is one of the best writers in the bike game. He also raced at the Suzuka 8-hour, nearly won the World Endurance title, and has covered GPs for 147 years or so. He's got a new book out. The Fast Stuff - it's the collected works of the best writer in...
And he's written something for Sideburn issue 2.
We called round his place when we were in town for the Mexican Wrestling and noticed these two stickers on his kitchen cupboards. The top one is self-explanatory, the bottom is from Japanese biking gear company, Yellow Corn. They still made jackets with this slogan on until very recently. Don't you just love em?