WE have already enjoyed reminiscing about the thrills and spills of Lew Coffin's days on the speedway track.

The motorcycling great, who passed away last year, is being paid tribute to by his friend Peter Trevett of Weymouth,.

Lew, of Leigh, near Sherborne, was instrumental in rejuvenating the Weymouth Speedway.

Lew always wore the number 22 in his races, while his friend Peter, who was inspired by Lew to get into grass track racing, wore the number 33.

Back in 1957, Lew won the 1,000 c.c. final at the Willoughby Hedge Championships and he recorded the fastest time of the day. He then rounded off his best season so far, by winning the 350 and 500 Championship of the Broadhembury Club at Willand in Devon as well as the unlimited and the eight fastest riders' events and clocking the fastest time of the day.

Lew even supplied his rival Fred Parkins with his 350 machine to compete after Fred's frame snapped.

Between race meetings Lew was training teenager Bryan Goss of Yeovil.

During a hugely successful season in 1958 Lew set a track record of 63.60mph at the Sittingbourne track.

In 1959 Lew and his wife were involved in head-on smash on the road while Lew was driving. His car was a write off and Betty was taken to hospital.

Lew, however, was not badly hurt and started walking to the Basingstoke meeting for which he was heading when the crash occurred.

But despite having two broken ribs Lew still chalked up two finals wins the next weekend!

In 1960 Lew had more success in Germany and was featured in newspaper Der Sport with the headline Fliengarde Sarg, meaning the Flying Coffin!

In 1963 Weymouth Speedway track had re-opened and Lew was a member of the team and captain of The Royals. In his spare time Lew would be at the track enthusiastically coaching the novices.

Clocking up the most wins of any rider from 1946 to 1965, Lew would have been England's greatest rider of that time.

There were many fatalities in the sport, especially in grass track racing, but Lew was lucky Peter said, apart from a bad accident when grass track racing in Hereford in which he broke his pelvis.

“There was one time when he was badly injured but he came back to riding in 1978.

“Lew reigned supreme in the south and the south west and was almost unbeatable.”

Peter and his first wife Jill were close friends with Lew and his wife Bet.

“When Lew came down and took the track over with a view to using it as a training track to teaching youngsters, we would all spend a lot of time together.”

Among the youngsters Lew encouraged and trained was Mike Trevett, Peter's son.

Although Lew was a natural at helping youngsters, he had chosen speedway and Bet as his only loves.

“His beloved missus Bet married him on the agreement that if they married they would never have children so he could continue with his racing.

“Apart from Betty coming first racing came second, third and fourth in his life.

“They were a brilliant couple. I don't ever remember them having a row.”

After retiring from riding Lew became a motor mechanic in Yeovil.

His biographer Cyril May perhaps summed it up best when he wrote: “Lew was temperamental to a degree and certainly a controversial figure. He was, nevertheless, a very renowned fellow and there was plenty of dynamite in him.

“He lived life to the full.”

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