Seventy years 897 RACES AGO
In contrast to 2019’s 19-round, nine-month marathon which concludes on 17th November, it took just 11 weeks to complete the inaugural FIM World Championship in 1949. Run over six rounds, points were awarded to the first five finishers in each of the four solo and one sidecar categories, with an extra point for the fastest lap of the race. While all results counted for the 125cc and 250cc championships, only the best three counted in the 350cc and 500cc classes.
On September 4th, 1949, ex-RAF pilot Les Graham DFC was officially declared Champion of the World in the premier 500cc class, despite crashing in the sixth and final round of the inaugural FIM World Championship. On the best-three-results system, Graham scored two wins and 31 points in the title chase, two more than Gilera’s Nello Pagani, who had grossed 40 points. In fact, Graham clinched the title at the penultimate round in Ulster, having achieved an unbeatable net points haul. AJS also took out the Manufacturer’s Championship in the 500cc class for 1949 by a single point from Gilera.
Graham’s mount was the AJS E90 ‘Porcupine’ parallel twin, developed from a pre-war design originally intended to be supercharged. In fact, as far back as 1939, AMC engineer Harry Collier had designed a three-cylinder water-cooled supercharged racing engine, which never went beyond the blueprint stage due to the outbreak of war. Herein lies a little known Australian connection to the Porcupine. Phil Irving, the Australian engineer with lengthy stints at Vincent and Velocette on his CV, joined Associated Motor Cycles (owners of AJS and Matchless) in 1942, where he met up with his good friend Joe Craig, who had joined AMC after
