Colby, Isle of Man, road racer George Costain, whose main claim to fame was winning the 1954 Senior Manx Grand Prix just two days after Castletown’s Derek Ennett had won the Junior to make it the MGP’s first Manx ‘double’, passed away on Tuesday, January 9 at the age of 88.
That ‘double’ was probably a deciding factor in the foundation of the Southern 100 races the following year, when Derek won the 250cc race but George failed to finish the 24-lap five-hundred.
George started his TT career in 1955, riding for ace tuner Reg Dearden, on whose Norton he had won the Senior Manx, and completed 10 TTs in total, with a best placing of 13th in the 1956 Senior, gaining nine silver replicas in the nine races he completed.
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When George finally hung up his leathers, away from his Castletown butchery business he joined the Southern 100’s racing organisation in 1961, and was a TT travelling marshal from 1961 until 1970.
In 2015, when the Southern 100 celebrated its 60th anniversary, George and fellow ex-racer and long-time official Alan ‘Kipper’ Killip were each presented with a special framed photograph.
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