The Beadle Brothers - Tony and Don

Part One - Allan Herridge years 1962 - 1970  

Produced by Mick Gleadow with help from Don Beadle and Tony’s widow Jennie.  Edited by Nick Pettitt

Tony and Don Beadle played a big part during UK drag racing’s inception through to it becoming an established motor sport. As well as their achievements as racers they both contributed massively as the sport grew by sharing what they knew and where to get parts.

The Beadle Brothers involvement in drag racing started around 1962/63, when they began buying American magazines about hot rodding, drag racing and go karts. They had seen pictures of dragsters in American magazines and they decided they wanted to build one. Don was racing grass track motorcycles and working as a motorcycle mechanic for Miles Motors in Uxbridge while Tony was an engineering draughtsman so they both had valuable skills for designing and building dragsters and engines.

Tony and Don both went to the First International Drag Festival at Blackbushe in 1964 and then Tony bought a dragster chassis from someone in Blackpool. It was a bare chassis, so it needed just about everything else. The 1964 Drag Festival made a deep impression on Tony and Don, as the article “8 seconds that changed my life” describes...

At the Drag Fest the brothers saw Allan ‘Bootsie’ Herridge racing his straight 8 Buick dragster and realised that he only lived a couple of miles from them. They decided to start building the dragster and went to see Allan about the parts they needed and narrowing a back axle. Allan was by now starting to build Pulsation, which was a much more up to date car than the Dragster Developments straight 8 Buick dragster.

Pulsation was a superb car and was built to the current American standards running a best of 11.2 and 138mph in 1965. The 331 Cadillac engine was fitted with Jahns racing pistons, Harman and Collins cam, a custom made six-carburetter manifold and running on methanol. Allan chose the Caddy because they were plentiful in scrap yards in west London, which had lots of scrapped American cars, left behind by American servicemen after WW2. The engine came out of a 1953 Caddy. Additionally, Allards knew a lot about Cadillacs, because the engine was used in Allard sports cars, many of which were exported to the States. Allan in fact bought the pistons for Pulsation from Allards while the cam came free from Harman and Collins but he did pay for a set of their roller lifters.

Pulsation was also fitted with a pair of American Racing mag wheels and Firestone slicks from the Mooneyes dragster. It had a Ford Pilot rear axle fitted with a Halibrand quick change centre section, which also came from Allards and had the Allard logo on it. 

Tony and Don Beadle were among the very first to go to Podington, before it became Santa Pod. Through being involved in the British Hot Rod Association, Allan Herridge was asked by John Bennett to see what he thought of the airfield he had found out about, north of Bedford. John Bennett had been looking all over the country for a place which would be suitable to become a drag strip and had found Podington. The Beadle Brothers went with Allan, along with John Harrison, and met John Bennett at the airfield. There were lots of abandoned American trucks and war time equipment all around the airfield and it was mainly being used by local people learning to drive without needing to go on the road.

In March 1966 Tony joined Allan and John on a trip up to the Manchester Drag and Custom Show in the back of Allan’s Austin K8 Dragster Developments van. It was very cold and uncomfortable as Tony was sitting on a box alongside John’s Jynx dragster and the back doors were wide open. The dragster was too long for the van and the front end was sticking out the back. Behind that on a trailer was Pulsation. This was before the M6 was built so the journey took many hours. Tony then slept two nights on Clive Lingard’s front room floor which was also very uncomfortable.

As well as helping Allan build Pulsation, Tony and Don began crewing on the car at race meetings in 1966, they then abandoned the idea of building their own dragster. Allan also had some mates, including Pioneer drag racer John Harrison on the crew. Tony and Don’s help came just at the right time as two original team members left at the end of 1965 as Brian Sparrow got married and Robin Evemy emigrated to New Zealand.

Pulsation was running at Santa Pod’s first meeting held on Easter Monday 1966 but clutch trouble and a wet strip kept it the 12s. The Pilot axle had tapered hubs, which kept spinning and so it was replaced with an Oldsmobile axle. Don remembers going to a scrap yard at Five Ways Corner near Newmarket for the Olds axle. RAF Mildenhall was near there, where a lot of American servicemen were based who preferred to drive American cars. Unfortunately, the American Racing mags didn’t fit the Olds axle so a pair of steel wheels were fitted with Goodyear Blue Streak tyres. The Olds axle was mounted six inches further back, a beefier clutch was fitted and the Cadillac motor was tilted forward as per the latest practice in the States.

Pulsation was running well at the Big Go taking a class win, then at the June 26^th meeting ran a tyre smoking 10.68 at 132mph but suffered a broken conrod. Allan realised that the Cadillac had reached the limits of its potential because of the siamesed centre exhaust ports which restricted breathing: also it was very heavy. 

Allan then got a small block Chevy from a scrap yard near Hayes, Middlesex. Again American cars were plentiful in the area because of the American servicemen based at nearby RAF Northolt who had brought their cars over to drive in the UK. So Allan, Tony and Don, now known as Herridge and the Beadle Bros, built a small block Chevy which was a 283” bored out to 301”. That was the classic Junior Fuel engine which on high loads of nitro could put dragsters into the 7 second bracket in the mid 1960s! ETs were similar to AA/Gas Dragsters of the time and I guess the class was equivalent in today’s terms to Top Methanol, as one step below Top Fuel.

Tony and Don had set up a business importing speed equipment from the States called ‘Speed and Custom Parts’ and they operated from their parents’ house where they lived. They imported three short stack Hilborn injection setups from Shell Autoparts in California. One was for Brian Gibson’s Wild Thing; one ended up on Alan Wigmore’s Itsaviva and the other was for Allan’s dragster.  

The Chevy motor was all iron with ported powerpack heads; (there were no aftermarket heads then!) and running on methanol. It was fitted with more imported American goodies including a Vertex magneto, Chet Herbert roller cam, Jahns forged pistons, boxed steel rods and had a Jack Brabham balanced crankshaft with Glacier bearings. When my brothers and I went to see Tony and Don it was pretty mind blowing to actually see parts which we had only seen pictures of in Hot Rod magazine.

The Chevy powered dragster was renamed Motovation and debuted in August 1967 where it wouldn’t run right, getting too much bite and bogging off the line. In October Herridge and the Beadle Bros took the dragster to Ramstein, a USAF air base in Germany, with other racers Derek Metcalf, Harold Bull and Pete Allen with his bike Magnum Opus and Ian Richardson with the Moonraker drag bike.

At Ramstein they met an American serviceman, Dale Vaznaian, who had run a Chevy junior fuel dragster back in the States. Dale took a lot of interest in the car and gave them loads of tips. Dale was a bike fan and Tony and Don got a Triumph 650 for him in this country, which Dale rode from coast to coast in the States. Dale Vaznaian is a talented guy and a few years later he set up NOS Systems with Mike Thermos, The Beadle family are still in contact with Dale, after all these years.

After time trials at Ramstein, which were mainly local racers drying out the track, the British demonstration team came out. Harold Bull was first and set a new track record of 11.4 but blew a head gasket. Allan was next in Motovation, accompanied by ‘a war dance a la Beadle’! On the first run there was initially too much traction, then lots of tyre smoke, a gentle wheelie and an 11.7 for openers. The team tried different tyres and on the last run got down to 11.5, which really impressed the crowd as the dragster lit the slicks of the line, like dragsters did then!

To go out to Germany to race was quite an adventure back then, going through France, Belgium, Luxembourg and West Germany (as it was then). Crossing borders meant documents known as Carnets, which weren’t always asked for. After the race meeting, Tony, Don and Allan left Ramstein about four hours after Harold Bull, Derek Metcalf and the rest of the British racers. They weren’t seen again until they were spotted haring along the dock at Dunkirk and were then cheered on board!

Motovation was towed on an open trailer behind a Transit van which belonged to Del, a mate of Allan’s and a carpenter by trade. He also owned a 1958 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, which was huge! Apparently, he was stopped by the police and was asked why he had a car that big; he replied that he paid his road tax and wanted to have as much of the road as he could get!

Over the winter of 1967/68, a new 138-inch chassis was built, modelled on a Woody Gilmore design, with a more up to date look. The 301 Chevy from the old car was fitted. Everything on the car was made as light as possible as it was built to NHRA Junior Fueler specs. Bodywork was kept to a minimum and made from paper thin magnesium sprayed with the iconic blue and yellow striped metal flake paint job for which the car is remembered to this day.

It was transported by a lengthened Thames 400E which was originally a bread van. The bloke selling it, somewhere in Harefield where Allan’s mother lived, wanted the aluminum van body for its scrap value, so the team bought the cab and bare chassis which they lengthened to take the dragster. The original prop shaft was too short so they found a 2-piece Jag prop shaft which, amazingly, fitted straight onto the gearbox and axle!

The old dragster chassis was sold to Chris Urlwin who was from the Watford area who then sold it to Bruce Brown to become Prospector 2. Dave Gibbons ran it with Daimler hemi power in the mid 70s and the car reappeared in the mid 90s running with the Wild Bunch.

Allan and Tony left London after work one midweek evening in Allan’s Mk2 Ford Consul heading once again to Manchester to see Clive Lingard who had an Olds differential they needed. They arrived late evening loaded the diff in the boot and headed straight home getting back in the early hours!

The Beadles were the owners of Ken Cooper’s iconic '33 Cabriolet Hot Rod in 1968 when they purchased it from Tony Whitehouse for £100. They kept it for a while before selling it on and it has since been restored back to original condition.

In 1968 the new dragster debuted, they kept the name Motovation and were out at the Big Go in June running a best time of 10.3/143mph but blew the timing gear on the next run. The team soon had new timing cover and gears flown over from the States. They cut a second keyway in the crank directly opposite the factory one to prevent it happening again; an old dodge as used on the Flintstone Flyer and the Steffey-Logghe Chevy fueler in the States.

At the Drag Racing; Hot Rod Magazine Trophy Meet in August the team got into the Top Eliminator final after beating ‘Tik’ Tickner in the injected nitro burning Olds powered Geronimo with a strong 10.27/142mph to Tik’s losing 10.70/144mph. They then met Alan Blount in the injected petrol burning Chevy powered Weekend Warrior in the final who got a two and a half car hole shot on a sleeping Herridge. Blount stayed ahead winning with a 10.71/123mph despite Allan’s top end charge at 10.46/141mph.

Motovation was next out at the 1968 Drag Racing Championships and things were not looking good in Eliminations when the timing chain broke. Mark Stratton came to the rescue with another chain and Herridge and the Beadle Bros got it back together for the Championship final run against Geronimo. Tickner got the hole shot but Herridge ran him down to win the Championship with a sizzling 9.90/141mph to 10.07/144mph; it was close! Allan had tears in his eyes as he received the Championship Trophy after clocking the first nine second Junior Fueler pass outside the States.

At the next meeting Allan backed up the nine second run with a 9.84/141mph then he was matched up with Tony Densham in the Commuter AA/FD in a David versus Goliath battle. Motovation had a one second start and nearly took it running 9.73/139mph as Tony passed him just before the eyes with an 8.75/157mph.

The Beadle brother’s Speed and Custom Parts was located at No. 239 Windsor Avenue, Hillingdon, Middlesex and it became an address that is burnished onto my brain. My brothers and I did the trip so many times to collect parts the car could find its own way there.

Tony and Don’s parents, Bill and Jean, were very nice, their mum was quite funny and their dad had a dry sense of humour. Their dad’s mantra was always “Measure twice and drill once” Good advice.  

I remember phoning once and their dad answered “Uxbridge 32795, The Morgue”. It’s funny that I still remember that phone number.

Being based near Heathrow Tony and Don used air freight to import parts and it was only three to four weeks delivery time, it was always entertaining with Tony and Don and there were plenty of racing stories, like who was buying parts and the inside story on cars being built.

Speed and Custom Parts was a boon for us, it was so much easier to nip down from Letchworth and talk about what we needed. Tony and Don ordered the parts, and then we would go and collect them. Before we met Tony and Don we ordered parts from Honest Charlie in Chattanooga and then waited a couple of months while they crossed the Atlantic by sea! 

Tony had a 1951 Ford Customline, flathead powered of course. A massive car, left hand drive with a column shift and easily taking three across the bench seats upfront and in the back. The flathead motor had the usual beautiful burble. 

A highlight of going to see Tony and Don was to go with them to Hayes to see Allan HerrIdge working on his dragster, on which he seemed to spend every evening and weekend. The facilities at the garage where the car was built, were pretty limited; this was just a lock up garage without any electricity, so for lighting they had to rig up a light from a car battery; drilling was by a hand drill or brace and bit and filing was done with a hand file. Aluminium body panels were cut with a wood saw. This was way before power tools, let alone rechargeable drills and angle grinders.

Knowing Tony and Don was good for our social lives as well, often on Sundays we would go over to see them and then onto the Farx Club, which was a room at the back of a pub called the Northcote Arms, in Southall. We saw bands like Thunderclap Newman, The Spirit of John Morgan, The Stray and Hawkwind! Bruce Brown, of Age Machine fame, would often come over as well and then head back to Suffolk, getting home in the early hours of Monday morning. After the gig we would often go to a Wimpy Bar in Uxbridge for a Wimpy Bar Special Grille, just what you need before the drive home. 

Tony and Don also often went out for meals, a bit of a treat in the 1960s, so often, with Brian Gibson and Bob Bailey we went to their local Berni Inn in Ruislip, for something like Prawn cocktail, steak and all the trimmings followed by Black Forest gateau - classic fare of the time! And then there were Friday nights at a curry house in Headstone Lane, Harrow, a great start to the weekend. Overnight stays near Santa Pod, often at the Nags Head in Wollaston were entertaining as well.

Phil Tunbridge, longtime friend and crewman for the Beadle Brothers, recalls... “I do remember one night staying in a pub, I guess in Wollaston, with Tony, Don and Bob Bailey.  Due to a lack of beds in the room, Bob and I ended up walking through the public bar wearing surfing shorts and fibre-glass German helmets with one of us each end of a six-foot length of foam rubber! I guess the regulars thought “oh, those racers” Crazy times indeed!

Back to racing and in 1969 the car came out with tall stack Enderle fuel injection, supplied by Dale Vaznaian which really looked the part. However, the most significant change was the car being renamed Glacier Bearing Special. When Tony and Don told us about the name change, we were pretty blown away.

Glacier Bearings was a well-known manufacturer of automotive bearings and to have a car sponsored by them was massive kudos for Tony, Don and Allan. Don had often bought engine bearings from Glaciers and so product sponsorship was agreed leading to the renaming as Glacier Bearing Special. 

The Glacier Bearing Special was out at the 1969 Big Go in May but a broken oil pump drive ended their day. Then at the Summer Spectacular in July Allan ran 10.01 straight off the trailer to head the four qualifiers in Top Dragster but in the final, he was shutdown by John Siggery who was now driving Geronimo. A healthy but friendly rivalry developed between the two teams, both running nine second injected dragsters, one an Olds and one a Chevy.

Over the weekend of July 26/27, Herridge and Beadle Bros joined a contingent of British racers and raced at Anderstorp in Sweden. Among the other racers were Clive Skilton in the Allard Skilton dragster and Tony Densham with The Commuter. They were running a heavy load of nitro in the injected Chevy and on their second run Allan sensed something was wrong and lifted just off the line. When they got back to the pits a close inspection revealed one of the expensive rods was broken putting them out of competition. Clive Skilton now had a top mounted blower on the Chrysler hemi but he couldn’t run quicker than 15 seconds. Allan and the Beadles had a look and suggested a different fuel pump would help so lent him theirs and the car was back in the nines.

During 1969 the Beadle-Herridge emporium were nailing together another 301 Chevy Junior Fueler for Peter Bennett called the Red Baron. Pete would run it during 1970 before selling it to Bruce Brown when it became known as Age Machine.

The 1st International Championships was held on 12th July 1970 and featured some Scandinavian drag racers who became big names in European drag racing, such as Hazze Fromm with the Roaring Viking funny car and Bjorn Anderson who had the Valkyrian dragster there. Herridge and Beadle Bros qualified with a fantastic 9.44/145mph, the best times the car ever ran. Allan reached the final where he met the mighty Quartermaster Top Fuel dragster of Dennis Priddle who whipped him with an 8.35/174mph to a clutch slipping 10.6/137mph.

With Clive Skilton and Dennis Priddle now regularly racing their Top Fuel dragsters in eliminations, rather than doing demonstration runs, the team realised that they couldn’t compete at the level they wanted. In 1971 Allan was offered rides in the Commuter and the Gloworm Capri Funny Car, both Santa Pod owned cars and so started Allan’s long involvement with Roy Phelps and Santa Pod.

The Glacier Bearing Special was sold and Don believes they got £3000 for it, a lot of money in those days, with a present-day value of £50,000. Recollections are hazy about how they sold the dragster and to whom, although it’s thought that the car went somewhere in the North of England.

The dragster was the subject of a lot of speculation over the years, making a brief appearance at Long Marston in the early 80s where the owners failed to get it running properly. It has recently resurfaced in perfect original condition and has been bought by Santa Pod Raceway for their Museum Collection.

Link to Jon Spoard’s article about the Glacier Bearing Special on UKDRN...

https://www.ukdrn.co.uk/herridge-and-beadle-motovation-alive-and-well-and-up-forsale/

So this was the end of the first chapter in the Beadle Brothers story but that lead on to both brothers making a name for themselves in different ways...