Ewen Gardiner of The Wanganui Chronicle took this famous picture at the Cemetery Circuit on December 26, 1960. Swinger Paul Daws (right) and rider Owen Sutter were thrown from Toddy Sollitt's 1000cc Ariel Square 4 on the Ridgway St rail overpass during Wanganui's 1960 Boxing Day Cemetery Circuit. The Gas Works that used to stand on the corner of Heads Rd/Taupo Quay is the backdrop to their dramatic crash where neither were injured. Photo / Ewen Gardiner
Ewen Gardiner of The Wanganui Chronicle took this famous picture at the Cemetery Circuit on December 26, 1960. Swinger Paul Daws (right) and rider Owen Sutter were thrown from Toddy Sollitt's 1000cc Ariel Square 4 on the Ridgway St rail overpass during Wanganui's 1960 Boxing Day Cemetery Circuit. The Gas Works that used to stand on the corner of Heads Rd/Taupo Quay is the backdrop to their dramatic crash where neither were injured. Photo / Ewen Gardiner
Paul Daws, who was captured on film flying through the air after crashing at the Cemetery Circuit in 1960, has died, aged 87.
In 2013, Chronicle journalist Merania Karauria and photographer Bevan Conley talked with him about his love affair with motorbikes and "that famous picture" taken by Wanganui Chroniclephotographer the late Ewen Gardiner.
Mr Daws was happy to share that famous 1960 picture when he and rider Owen Sutter were thrown into the air as they passed over the Ridgway St bridge overpass during the Boxing Day Cemetery Circuit.
His interest was fuelled by his father Bernie who rode and talked motorbikes with his friends.
"I was a boy at the time but I took it all in. I got my motorbike and car licence when I was 15 and bought my first bike in 1951."
It was a 1936 500cc Velocette road bike. He was working as a teacher and rode bikes until he could afford a car.
The young Mr Daws taught at Oroua Downs in the Manawatū then returned to teach at Queens Park for 10 years. He later taught at Orere in South Auckland and then taught at Pukekohe north.
Paul Daws in his shed with his AJS 350cc ex-Grand Prix bike. Photo / Bevan Conley
In 1953 Mr Daws started racing on a 1951, 125cc Royal Enfield two-stroke.
"I rode it to work during the week and at the weekends raced it. At the end of day's racing I put the number plate and lights back on and rode it home."
Mr Daws said it was not long before he decided that the two-stroke was too slow so he bought a 1936 250cc Triumph L/21.
Two years later Mr Daws bought a 1949 AJS 350cc model 16 which could do 80mph (128km/h) with a straight pipe, and 90mph with a megaphone.
"I had some good racing with this machine, scrambling, road racing, and beach racing, including racing in the Cemetery Circuit in 1955."
His personal transport was a 1951 Matchless 500cc, and for racing he bought a 1950/51 Gold Star BSA.
"I rode that till the exhaust valve dropped in which did a lot of damage. At this stage I stopped racing and concentrated on my teaching and played cricket for sport."
It was then that Mr Daws ventured into sidecar racing as a swinger.
"Toddy Sollitt's 1000cc Ariel Square 4 was not being used so we thought we'd take it for a ride."
But there was a fault with the rear brake which wanted to go right when Sutter steered the bike left around the corner.
"We did a couple of flips ... I rolled into a ball after 'touch down on the road'."
Both men walked away with only a few scratches. Photographer Ewen Gardiner snapped the dramatic crash.
The late Ray Whitham, Cemetery Circuit historian, wrote about that day.
"The first sidecar race of the day was their first ever [for Owen Sutter and Paul Daws] and on the borrowed Toddy Sollitt-owned Aerial 1000 outfit they finished fourth, a good result for a novice crew. Then it was their turn to spill and thrill."
This was not long after Napier's Gordon Skilton and passenger Ray Larson crashed on the overbridge on their 500cc Norton outfit, flipping the bike over the bridge to the concrete industrial yard below, while leaving the two men on the road, shaken, but unhurt.
Back to Ray Whitham's account of the Sutter / Daws crash.
"The last race of the day, the second for sidecars, was a handicap event and they were the first away. Maybe it was the excitement of the moment because when they race on to the overhead bridge on that first lap, they were, like Skilton earlier, going too fast for the bumpy left-hander.
"They drifted wide and struck one of the sandbags protecting the bridge parapet and railings. Their outfit was catapulted high in the air, tossing both of them off before it too landed back on the roadway."
Tod Sollitt had bought the Aerial Square Four as burnt wreckage after the previous owner, Marton's Frank Holder, crashed it while riding it to the shop for servicing.
Tod rebuilt it and put it back on the racetrack. He raced it for a while but in 1960 he was racing a new Norton 500cc outfit with passenger Neil McDowell, and the Aerial was parked up.
"It was spare, and Owen Sutter and Paul Daws were keen to have a ride that day, so they borrowed it," Tod says.
He says the damage to the machine was minimal after the 1960 crash. "It was a pretty strong bike."
Tod kept the Aerial for quite a few years but believes the machine is now in Palmerston North.
