RUST magazine: RUST#30

ust heritage
the Greeves served harris very well for more than two years. he was
fourth in the southern experts and the following weekend was the
Archer trophy trial, a major event of the trials season. Gordon Jackson
was taking part having just returned from winning the scottish six days
famously with just a single mark lost (a feat repeated this year by dougie
Lampkin). harris was determined to give it his all and in the final count,
though Jackson had the fewest marks lost, the young harris came a
close second. the difference was harris had to ride his bike home.
the following day he had a phone call from Bert thorn of Comerfords
the nation’s top off-road dealer in its day and who had let him have the
bike at a good price in the first place. Would he like to help out with a
Greeves promotion over the weekend seeing as how he was doing
pretty well on the 24 te. One thing led to another and by the end of
the weekend he’d accepted a job in the Motorcycle news advertising
department. “how could i refuse? i had a mortgage, two small children,
a beautiful wife and no job.”
harris also had some good wins on the Greeves including riding in
the scottish six days team and getting a special first-class mention
and award.
After Greeves, harris started a 12-year relationship with Montesa as a
development rider for what eventually became the Montesa Cota range.
during this time harris rode all over the continent and even had a ride
in a round of the Australian national Championship to show off the
Montesa. he ended up fifth in the european trials Championship the
equivalent of the World Champs today.
he rode many different makes of bike to success in both trials and
motocross, the latter included an Mds 250 Greeves and a Challenger
as well as twin-port CZ 250. he had some great results for Brian Leask
riding a yamaha ty175. But perhaps the sweetest wins were onboard a
Kawasaki Kt250 which harris was helping develop for Bob Gollner.
he won the southern experts from sammy Miller and next came the
selborne solo inter-Centre trial, the venue was home to Miller and the
honda works team and they were using it to showcase the new honda
tL360. unfortunately their fireworks were well and truly pissed on by a
Kawasaki Kt250 ridden by one C. harris.
incidentally, the Circuit des Pyrenees isn’t the only time that harris
has been shot at, it also happened once in the former east Germany –
they were trying to scare him off. it didn’t work.
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