Rob Dillon’s dad was a respected tuner of Matchless G50 racers. His G50s always managed to deliver a little more top speed and a little more pull out of slow corners without sacrificing reliability. Consequently, he had a queue of riders asking him to work his magic on their engines.
Rob could never remember seeing his dad in a suit. For his day job, he wore the company overalls. At home, he put on his brown workshop coat, had his tea, and headed for his shed. As soon as he could walk, Rod followed. His first – and abiding - memory of the shed was not the contents but the smell. Racing motorcycles ran on a vegetable oil made primarily from the castor bean and when hot this oil had a unique sharp yet somehow sweet smell.
As Rob grew, his dad taught him how to use hand tools. Later, he was allowed to use the machine tools. Most importantly, he learned patience. He observed his dad putting an engine together and taking it apart again if the fit was not just right and doing that as many times as he judged necessary. Using a hammer to make something fit was outlawed in the shed. His dad always dismissed hammers as ‘Birmingham screwdrivers’.
All the work on the bikes led up to the family’s annual holiday, which was two weeks in the Isle of Man – practice week and the week of the TT races. Rob travelled on his mum’s lap in the sidecar of their BMW/Steib combination until he was big enough to ride pillion, and learning from his dad how to ride. Practice week was no holiday for Rob’s dad. He was hard at work fettling his clients’ engines, and as Rob grew, he was with him, handing him the correct spanner or feeler gauge. In race week, they relaxed and watched the bikes hurtling round the TT course, listening carefully to the sound of every bike they had worked on as it flew past, checking lap times to see whether modifications they had made paid off in improved performance.
These idyllic years were not to last, as Rob’s dad contracted MS in a form that advanced rapidly. He became less able to work in his former perfectionist way, and the number of engines he was asked to work on declined. There came a year when it seemed only one more trip to the Isle of Man would be possible. The natural order of things was upset, with Rob riding the BMW, his mum with him on pillion and his dad tucked up in the Steib.
As always, they went down to the pit area on the first day of practice. When they appeared, all work stopped and the riders and mechanics conducted Rob’s dad to the winner’s rostrum. The clerk of the course handed him a trophy to commemorate his years of work. It was what the family always called ‘Dad’s pinnacle moment’.