Triples Who's Who

Triples Who's Who
Honorary Members & Famous Faces

Steve Brown

Honorary Member Steve Brown is a regular rider at Beezumph, on his experimental Mk3 Rob North. A pure BSA man, it must have taken great courage to work at the Triumph factory clad in BSA overalls, but that is what Steve did on his arrival at Meriden from Small Heath.

His transfer from Birmingham to Triumph's race shop was sanctioned by Doug Hele, and had to be cleared with Meriden trade unions. Steve had ridden BSAs since his teens and joined the Small Heath workforce in 1965. His job was with the rectification dept., correcting faults on machines as they left the production line for the Packing Department, and he also tested them on the small circuit laid out within the Armoury Road complex. By the time Rocket 3s were rolling off the production line, he had started racing his own 650cc Spitfire twin.

He spent his break times in the race shop picking up tips, and pestering Brian Martin for a job. Eventually Martin, BSA's race shop boss, relented and Steve became one of four fitters working on road racing machines, alongside a larger team preparing motocross machines, supervised by Jeff Smith.

Road racing activity had been focused on production twins, campaigned mostly by Pat Mahoney and BSA employee Tony Smith, but for the 1970 season, Steve was involved with a pair of Rocket 3s prepared mainly for the Thruxton 500-miler and the production TT.

When road racing activity was scaled down, Steve was offered work on motocrossers. His response was to say that he'd rather go and work at Meriden. His cheek paid off in more ways than one, because the transfer was arranged! His first job at Triumph was working on a BSA: a production Rocket 3 being built to complete a squad of six, comprising three of each make. It had a high-clearance frame assembled from scratch at Meriden, without the weighty internal strengthening tubes fitted to the standard A75 frame. For the 1971 Anglo-US series Steve was put in charge of John Cooper's North-framed BSA. He was proud that Cooper's machine ran well at the freezing 1971 Brands Hatch Anglo-US opener, when other team bikes suffered big-end failures in practice. 'I stayed and warmed my bike up when the others had knocked off and gone to the café,' he said. At the 1971 Bol d'Or, Steve was part of the crew looking after the winning Pickrell/Tait machine. As Cooper's right-hand man, Steve Brown shared in the glories of the 1971 Mallory Park Race of the Year, the Race of the South and Ontario. The relationship with Cooper resumed for 1972, when the machine was kept at the rider's garage business in Derby. Brown spent Mondays fettling it, and the rest of the week at Meriden.

He worked on the big-bore T180 project, and a production version of the racing transmission with the two-plate clutch and a duplex chain. He returned to Ontario in 1972 with Cooper, and then moved to Kitts Green when Meriden was shut, before finally being made redundant. He continued to work with Triples, firstly at dealers' workshops, and then on his own. He bought an ex-Pickrell Production A75, and helped Bee Bee Racing, new owners of the ex-Cooper Triple, and other privateers. He also owned Son of Sam, the T160 production racer project originating at Kitts Green.

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Ron Barrett