Jimmie Guthrie
Scottish motorcycle racer (1897–1937)
James Guthrie (23 May 1897 – 8 August 1937) was a Scottish motorcycle racer.
A motorcycle garage proprietor and professional motorcycle racer from Hawick Roxburghshire, Guthrie was known as the “Flying Scotsman,” with a hard-charging motor-cycle racing style winning 14 European Continental Grand Prix in a three-year period 1934–1937 out of a total of 19 European Grand Prix victories .
While racing with the works Norton motorcycle team, Guthrie won the 500cc FICM 500cc European motor-cycle championship for three consecutive years 1934–1937 and the 350cc category in 1937. During the 1930s, Guthrie won the North West 200 races on three occasions and a further six wins at the Isle of Man TT races.
While leading on the last lap of the 1937 German Motorcycle Grand Prix, Guthrie crashed for reasons that are still not entirely clear, speculated to be an incident with another competitor, or a mechanical issue. He later died later in hospital from the injuries.
Biography
Guthrie was born in Hawick, Scotland.
War service
After a period as an apprentice engineer, Guthrie joined the local regiment, the 4th (The Border) Battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers. The 4th Bn Kings Own Scottish Borders were part of the 52nd (Lowland) Division and while moving from Scotland to Gallipoli were involved in the Quintinshill rail crash near Gretna Green with the 1/7th Bn Royal Scots which resulted in the death of 210 officers and men from the 52nd Division. While serving with the 4th Bn Kings Own Scottish Borderers, Guthrie saw service at Gallipoli and in Palestine.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jimmie Guthrie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.