He emigrated to NZ in 1970 , bringing his family and the love of the speedway with him , starting at Western Springs until they relaid the track surface with clay , which was too sticky for speedway bikes , and he ’ s been at Rosebank ever since . We chatted at length and Tommy ’ s stories are legion , but one stood out in particular . It was the story of a rather dashing team-mate rider of his , when they both rode for the New Cross team . Split Waterman was a character , a great speedway rider , and lover of the good life , and a man ( like a friend of mine ) with a passion for Triumph TR ’ s , in particular TR3 ’ s . ( I once owned a 1966 TR4A IRS which I bitterly regret selling but we ’ re way off course here ..) Split Waterman was also a licensed arms dealer after the war , quite legal , until they stopped the licenses of chaps selling old war ordnance , but Split never stopped apparently , and it was rumoured that he and his girlfriend Averil slept with a bazooka under the bed . After meetings , Split and Tommy would often drive home side by side on the M1 with Averil passing cups of tea back and forth at a hundred miles an hour between the two cars . But the apocryphal story was that Split was rumoured to be smuggling gold from the continent . These race meetings were a good cover for moving back and forth to the UK , but no one had ever been able to prove the accusation . Until one day he was stopped entering the UK from France , and the law had his TR3 up on a hoist , inspecting every inch of it . They had once again found nothing , when a knowledgeable chap who happened to know a thing or two about Triumph cars noticed a tiny anomaly . “ Oi !”, he says , “ TR ’ s shouldn ’ t have a weld there ”, pointing to a faint line on the chassis . So the law ground off the weld and discovered that the entire chassis structure was filled with gold bars . Split did time . In another twist , it was thought that the Kray brothers were implicated with Waterman , and it was possible that their guns had been supplied by him too , so as fellow team riders , Tommy and the other teammates ( who
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