John Draper

Gloucestershire farmer with a talent for motorcycling

John Draper, farmer and motorcyclist: born Bishop's Cleeve, Gloucestershire 1929; married (one son); died Bishop's Cleeve 24 December 2002.

John Draper has a unique place in British motorcycling history as the first British rider to win the European Moto Cross Championship. That was in 1955, when the diminutive Gloucestershire farmer drove thousands of miles across the continent with his heavy 500cc BSA "Gold Star" to take on and beat the cream of Europe's racers. He failed to score in the first three of eight rounds, but at the British round, at the daunting Hawkstone Park circuit in Shropshire, was second to his BSA teammate and brother-in-law, Jeff Smith, before going on to win the Belgian and Swedish races and take the precious crown.

Born in Bishop's Cleeve, near Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, "Drapes" Draper learned to ride on his father's farm, inspired by the trials and scrambles events held there. At the age of 17 he showed enough promise for the local star Bob Foster to get him a new 350cc AJS late in 1946, and on Boxing Day that year he won his first award on the new mount.

By the spring of 1948 he had been signed up as an official rider for the huge BSA factory, after Billy Nicholson, one of their leading riders, had come down to the Draper farm to practise and seen the youthful John's ability. Just a year later John Draper was leading the prestigious Scottish Six Days Trial on the third day, until the flooded River Arnisdale drowned the BSA's engine and delayed Draper's progress enough to rob him of all hope of presenting BSA with their first victory in one of the most demanding sporting trials.

His talent as a scrambler was writ large in the 1950 Moto Cross des Nations, run on military ground at Skillingaryd, Sweden. A member of the strong British team competing with seven other nations for the title, Draper led the deciding race from start to finish as the team manager hung out "slow down" signs to conserve the hard-worked machinery. Draper was followed home by a phalanx of British talent to a convincing domination of what was then the Olympic Games of motorcycling.

Nineteen fifty-one confirmed his remarkable versatility as a rider. The Scottish Six Days Trial was based in Edinburgh, with competitors riding out into the Highlands to follow narrow tracks without stopping or putting their feet down to keep balance or maintain forward motion. Draper was barely 5ft 6in tall and rivals suggested that he seldom incurred penalties for touching the ground because he simply couldn't reach it. Whatever, he finished the demanding week first, ahead of Triumph's Jim Alves, reigning British champion, and a BSA rider had at last brought the coveted winner's Alexander Challenge Trophy back to the Birmingham factory.

A few weeks later he was in the Isle of Man, contesting the production-machine Clubman's TT races on a 350cc Norton and 500 Triumph, because no member of the trade could ride his employer's products in events intended strictly for amateurs. Despite his having ridden only in one qualifying road race, Draper's natural talent carried him to third place in both races, on unfamiliar machines in a sporting discipline where he had almost no experience.

Asked years later if he had been tempted to follow a career in this area – where the rewards would have been much greater – he explained that work on his father's farm did not allow time to do it seriously. But he did admit that Francis Beart, one of the best talent spotters in racing, had shown an interest in providing him with machinery. Back home from the Isle of Man, Draper took his BSAs along to the local Cotswold Scramble and won both 350 and 500cc races. No other motorcycle rider showed such a wide range of talent at that time.

His career was almost ended later in the year by a crash in the International Six Days Trial, in northern Italy. Overtaking another rider on the timed night run, he fell and was heavily concussed. He was taken to hospital, where the operation to remove a blood clot in his head was refused until the BSA factory cabled the necessary fees.

Draper signed with the Norton factory for 1952, and after victory in the Colmore Cup trial he almost won his second Scottish Six Days Trial. Delayed by tyre troubles that added time penalties to his loss of marks, he ended the week in second place. He scrambled a machine loosely based on Norton's road-racing models, very fast but lacking the flexibility and precise control necessary for high speed away from surfaced roads; he did not win one major scramble that year. He was fourth in the national trials championship, but with the Norton development effort concentrated on road racing, he reverted to BSAs for 1953, and got straight into a winning groove that led him on to contest the European Championship in 1955 and make his indelible mark on history.

He remained a full-time farmer and weekend motorcycle competitor, and admitted to using his precious factory-prepared BSAs to round up the milking herd. The machines were returned to the BSA factory for regular servicing and updating, where the Competition Shop foreman Arthur Crawford protested that he always had to replace the petrol tank on Draper's machines, as they came back with mysterious circular denting. It was some years before he discovered that Draper had been transporting milk churns by balancing them on the petrol tank.

John Draper's riding talent was natural, enough to overcome the apparent disadvantage of his short stature. When Jeff Smith (who was world moto cross champion in 1964 and 1965, after the European title had gone global) visited to join in practice sessions, Draper would ride up one particularly steep hill, then pull in the clutch and ride down backwards in his own wheeltracks. Few riders have the ability to perform that trick.

His active riding career stretched into the 1960s; he won the Cotswold Cup Trial on a Gloucester-built Cotton in 1961 and the Lincolnshire Grand National scramble on a BSA that same year. He continued to ride BSA after his factory contract had lapsed and never admitted to having retired from competition.

Jim Reynolds