Thursday February 26, 2015 at 4:14pm
Allan was born in Rugby and was introduced to drag racing from an early age as he is the son of Pete Davies the founder of Puma Engineering. His childhood in the 70’s were trips to Santa Pod Raceway and visits to their house from legends like John Clift, Henk Vink, Frank & Phil Brachtvogel, Brian Johnson and many more.
When Allan left school in 1987 he got a four-year apprenticeship at Rugby Instruments as a service engineer calibrating electrical test equipment and had a day release to go to college East Warwickshire college studying Electrical Engineering. Allan worked there for twelve years and then in 1999 decided to change jobs and went to work for Dowding & Mills as a field service engineer calibrating electrical and mechanical equipment. In 2013 Allan joined Eurotherm again as a field service engineer calibrating and installing temperature control equipment.
Allan has always been into bikes with trips to the race meetings as a spectator, but it wasn’t until the 2009 European Finals at Santa Pod while he was looking though the event programme and had a discussion about hiring a Junior Dragster for his son Louis’s ninth birthday. Later on it was mentioned to Allan’s dad who said he thought there were Junior Drag Bikes. After browsing on the internet during the winter period a Junior Drag Bike was built by his dad and Louis made his race debut in April 2010.
After a while Allan was getting bored of watching Louis at RWYB meetings and decided he wanted to have go. So at the Ladies that Launch meeting at Shakespeare County in July 2010 he rode his Fireblade road bike and after that he decided to follow in his sons footsteps and get a Drag Bike of his own. Allan saw an advert on the Eurodragster website. The owner was Dave Knight so Allan contacted Jerry Collier who knew Dave and both of them drove to North of Aberdeen to purchase the Tigger Funnybike. It turned out to be originally built by Paul Rose for Dave Knight and ridden in 1999/2000. The winter was spent rebuilding and checking the bike, as it had not run for ten years. Allan decided to take out the three-speed gearbox and fit a standard five-speed gearbox so he could learn to ride it.
Allan celebrated his 40th birthday at Shakespeare County Raceway making his debut with the Funnybike on April 29th 2011 with his keen crew of wife Clair Davies, Kerryanne Frazier and Mark Nipper Stevens the bike got down the track fine with no problems. The bike was run most of the time at Shakespeare County RWYB meetings and by September the bike was running in the nine-second bracket. Lizz McCarthy talked Allan into going to the Extreme Performance Bike Weekend meeting and to enter the Straightliners Series in Comp Bike class. This was the first time Allan had been to the Santa Pod with the Funnybike and in competition. The event was a success with Allan running his first eight second pass and winning the Comp Bike event. At the next RWYB meeting at Shakespeare County Raceway Allan ran a personal best of 8.20.
The following year saw more persuasion from Lizz to enter ACU Comp Bike Championship. But the bike developed a fault, either it would die on the start line or backfire through the carbs and that went on for most of the year. The highlight of the year was seeing Louis win his first Junior Drag Bike Championship.
Many people had offered help throughout the year to solve Allan’s problems and one person who offered lots of advice was Richard Gipp. He also offered them spare parts and helped the team out. At the end of the year Richard offered Allan the opportunity to ride one of his more modern bikes. A deal was struck with Allan’s engine/transmission being fitted into Richard’s bike. So over the winter break there was a trip to Richard's over in Kings Lynn and then a few weeks spent at Allan’s dads garage where the bike was completed and ready to go.
2013 started with Allan running personal best figures of 8.173 at 167.29mph at the season opener at Santa Pod. But there were a few problems brought over from the old bike but they were sorted by the time he entered the second round of the championship at the Springspeed Nationals at Shakespeare County. The bike was running consistently and Allan ran a personal best speed of 167.92mph. An auto five speed box was fitted in July and did some testing before the next round of the championship and Allan recorded his first seven-second pass of 7.87. It made the bike very competitive for the remainder of the season. At the Open Sports Nationals Allan got quicker on nearly ever run with best figures of 7.740 at 168.77mph and went on to win his first ACU event. At the National Finals he finished runner up and ran yet another personal best figures of 7.606-173.06mph in the dark. Going into the last round of the championship Allan had a chance of winning it. That came to an end during qualifying when a piston broke destroying half of the engine. Allan finished third behind Lizz McCarthy and Jemma Venables.
The number one and number two plates of 2013 were not competing in the 2014 season and Allan was one of the favourites for the ACU Comp Bike title. It turned out to be a close contest between Allan and Phil Crossley having rebuilt the engine the team were determined to win the championship and Allan won all three events that finished recording personal bests during the season and at the National Finals ran best figures of 7.512 176.45mph. Eventually he won the ACU Comp Bike Championship, APIRA Championship and SPRC Championship.
Allan also entered the European FIM Championship in the Pro Stock Bike class at Santa Pod riding Richard Gipp’s prostock bike and recorded a 7.762 second run.
Allan and Louis both won their classes at the National Finals and then went on to win their National Championships, becoming the first father and son to do so in the history of UK Drag Racing. This would not have been possible without a really great team of people. Allan’s very understanding wife Clair, Mum and dad, Richard Gipp, Mark Nipper Stevens, Kerryanne Frazier, Phil Cordelle, Kevin Charman and also lots of help from other people along the way.
ACU asked Allan if he had any memories he look back on. When Louis and I won at the National Finals last year. Running my first eight-second pass at the 2011 Extreme Performance Bike Weekend meeting. Going to an RWYB meeting to test the motor and recording my first seven-second pass of 7.87
ACU would like to thank Allan for his time and allowing them to do this article.
Report by Steven Moxley.