Wassells were distribued in Australia by a mob called Speedway Safety Products. A bloke in our club named Bob Church was a pretty handy C grader who worked for the company. The owner of SSP was a big old guy who rarely went to the races, he was more comfortable in the RSL with a schooner in front of him. Because he was stuck with a warehouse full of these things and they weren't selling the owner decided to sponsor Bob on one in 125 races all over the state in an attempt to show the racing world just how good these Wassells were.
So the scene was set. Bob would enter a given meeting on his Maicos and the Wassell and spread the Wassell name all over. The only flaw in the program was that the Wassells were monumentally uncompetitive in the days of the CR125 Elsinore. The results from those meetings showed otherwise however. After many meetings, both short circuit and motocross, the results in Revs or AMCN would more times than not show Bob Church and his Wassell as winning or placing in the 125 c grade races. The boss was so rapt, he gave the Wassell to Bob in appreciation. The poor old bugger never found out what was really happening.
Even though Bob was entering the Wassell in every meeting, he was actually racing his CR125 Elsinore. When the results were collated and distributed to the press, usually by an unknowing female club secretary, she'd just look in the program and note that it said R. Church....Wassell 125. The fact that he'd actually ridden an Elsinore didn't come into the equation.
I ran into Bob many years later and asked about the Wassell and what had happened to it. At that time,the early nineties the bike was still almost unridden, under a sheet in his Dads garage. I can remember us going to our practice track, the legendary "Stacks" at Port Botany on Sunday arvo and Churchy turned up with the Wassell and a Sprite 405.
We rode them both and couldn't believe that bikes that looked so good could be so bad. Even then we noticed that the Sprite was an Alron and visa versa. I wonder if the Wassell is still there?
I'm going to use a Wassell tank on my upcoming Ducati Hindall project. I remember seeing a CR125 powered Wassell (Tyran )in the US and it flew. The frames were typically British good quality stuff but the Sachs engine sufered the almost unsolvable gear selection problems. When they were set up right, they went pretty good though.
