'100 MILES IN THE HOUR'
Bill Lacy, Grindlay Peerless, 1928
30cm x 40cm
(Acrylic on board)
On a perfect summer’s evening at seven O’clock on the 1st of August 1928,
Bill Lacey, wheeled his immaculate, nickel plated Grindlay-Peerless JAP, 500cc
twin-port single onto the concrete track at Brooklands, Surrey, England
and was push-started.
One hour later he became the first motorcyclist ,on a 500cc machine,
to
achieve 100 miles in the hour on British soil.
Limited edition Giclee print on archival fine art paper.
signed and numbered by the artist, Robin Bark.
The prints can be shipped internationally (unmounted),
rolled in a strong card tube.
Edition size: 100
£100
To order, or for further information,
please contact Robin:
robinbark@yahoo.co.uk
+44 (0) 7767 824635
THE PAINTING
After extensive
research at both the National Motorcycle Museum, where the original bike now
resides,
and also in the photo archives at Brooklands Museum, I began this
painting.
I had got to know every nut and bolt on the bike
but very little
about Bill Lacey the man.
I followed scores of
leads trying to track down people who might have known him,
including Gerry
Belton, author of ‘All the years at Brooklands’, but with little success.
However, I did discover that he had a daughter who had worked with him,
tuning and race-preparing Manx Nortons (and also Mike Hailwood's first
racing mount).
After countless emails and pleas on the Internet, I at last
got a name,
an address, and eventually a telephone number.
There followed a series
of fascinating telephone conversations about the thrills and spills
of her father's
(and mother's) pioneering days;
details of what he might have worn and what sort of person he was.
A rather precise
person, it seems, and not someone who suffered fools easily (or at all).
I
think I would have liked him.
After the painting was
finished, I had the good fortune to meet Ann Lacey
on the 80th anniversary
of her father's record-breaking triumph at the Bill Lacey Memorial Run.
I
presented her with a print of the painting and was very pleased that she
approved of it
and thought that I'd captured him well. Later, she wrote me
a sweet letter
saying how much she enjoyed having the painting to remind her
of her famous father.
