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16-02-2010, 03:59 PM
"Who do you think you are then - Barry Sheene?"
by julian ryder
Monday, February 15, 2010
(Originally published in 2003)
It is difficult to explain just what Barry Sheene meant to British motorcyclists.
He was, of course, the last Briton to win a 500cc GP as well as the last Brit to win a world title, but that isn't half of it. To the UK he was motorcycle racing, he defined it for a decade and more. He was the only rider who the general public knew, the only one to make an impression outside the ghetto of the paddock since Geoff Duke and John Surtees - and he had to win a car championship to get recognized. He was the bloke you wished you were: fast, good looking, quick witted, intelligent and always surrounded by beautiful women. Get stopped for speeding on a bike on the roads today and the policeman will still say "Who do you think you are then - Barry Sheene?"
We used to say he moved motorcycle racing off the back page onto the front page. Not true; It wasn't even on the sports pages before Sheene. He performed this magic with a mix of cunning, ruthlessness and chirpy charm that got him just about everything he wanted. Being his team-mate was never easy.
He was the first to realize that he had to market himself if he was to compete with other sportsmen. Along the way he befriended the Beatle George Harrison, appeared on the top BBC TV chat show with theatrical knight and fellow motorcyclist Sir Ralph Richardson, made adverts with heavyweight boxer and national hero Henry Cooper (the one who knocked Ali down so hard his seconds had to buy him time by slitting his glove), and generally became a household name. He was the only motorcycle racer your mother had ever heard of.
His death was received with saturation coverage by mass media that at least now acknowledge bike sport even if they don't cover it with any enthusiasm. Every network TV news bulletin headlined his passing; every newspaper gave it acres more space than the sport ever gets. My daily paper - a serious, liberal broadsheet - covered it in triplicate; on the news pages, as the lead on the obituaries page, and with a fulsome tribute by the star writer on the sports pages. All of which is in danger of obscuring one thing: that Sheene was a very fine motorcycle racer.
There were the two world 500 titles of course, and there was also the fastest ever GP win. Try an average of 135.067mph for ten laps of the old 8.7-mile Spa circuit in the Belgian GP of 1977. What isn't so well known is that he won a 50cc GP and nearly won the 125 title in his first year, only being beaten by the legendary Angel Nieto. Contrary to popular belief, he did ride in the Isle of Man TT - but only once. He was a vocal critic of the Mountain Circuit before and after he raced there. He was a strong voice for circuit safety in an era when riders were expected to race - and die - for the love of the sport and the benefit of organizer's bank balances. Along with sidecar driver Werner Schwarzel he was the first official riders' representative to the FIM. He squared that post with such activities as dynamiting the toilet block in the Imatra paddock by explaining that they, the powers that be, never listened to complaints until someone did something.
He never had any trouble getting an audience, they loved him because he had the knack of saying what you didn't expect. His first appearance after that Silverstone crash was on the BBC's Sports Review of the Year - a massively prestigious program. The first image was of those X-rays, then a bike started up and Barry rode on stage on an RG500. Murray Walker asked him, sotto voce, how his dreadful injuries were affecting him. Barry replied that he'd lost so much weight in hospital his crew had had to put extra padding on the seat to stop his arse hurting.
British motorcyclist loved him: no less a racer than Damon Hill described him as his first hero, and I loved the story on one tribute website of a guy who used to get in trouble with the police for turning the 'L' plates learners have to display upside down on his moped so they looked like Barry's number seven.
His name on an entry list would put thousands on the gate at any track in the UK, and Barry knew it. The 1979 Silverstone race with Kenny Roberts is still reshown on BBC TV as one of the all-time great moments in sport. After his second massive accident and come back, thousands of us crammed the overnight ferries to France to see his European comeback race at the French GP. Sure enough, he pulled out of the paddock and gave that little finger-waggling wave to the grandstands. The place went ballistic - us Brits, the French, everyone. He never won a GP again but it didn't matter.
We saw him for the last time at Donington this year at the British GP. Barry raced the two classic events on a Manx Norton, one on Saturday after qualifying, one on Sunday after the MotoGP. He won them both. Watching him on the rostrum again wearing black leathers, you remembered that's how he started. In the era of baggy black leathers and pudding basin helmets - in Barry's case on Bultacos tuned by his dad. Racing changed a lot while Barry was around and he did more to drive that change than most.
My personal favorite memory of Barry Sheene - my bit of Sheene folklore - came after the Belgian GP of 1984. I was hacking home on a French motorway, heading for the ferry on a Suzuki Turbo, when a rush of tire noise told me something serious was coming up behind me, it went past in a blast of cheerful horn tooting. A Rolls Royce traveling at warp-factor nine, license plate BS 7.
I stood up on the pegs, yelled inside my helmet and punched the air with my left hand.
by julian ryder
Monday, February 15, 2010
(Originally published in 2003)
It is difficult to explain just what Barry Sheene meant to British motorcyclists.
He was, of course, the last Briton to win a 500cc GP as well as the last Brit to win a world title, but that isn't half of it. To the UK he was motorcycle racing, he defined it for a decade and more. He was the only rider who the general public knew, the only one to make an impression outside the ghetto of the paddock since Geoff Duke and John Surtees - and he had to win a car championship to get recognized. He was the bloke you wished you were: fast, good looking, quick witted, intelligent and always surrounded by beautiful women. Get stopped for speeding on a bike on the roads today and the policeman will still say "Who do you think you are then - Barry Sheene?"
We used to say he moved motorcycle racing off the back page onto the front page. Not true; It wasn't even on the sports pages before Sheene. He performed this magic with a mix of cunning, ruthlessness and chirpy charm that got him just about everything he wanted. Being his team-mate was never easy.
He was the first to realize that he had to market himself if he was to compete with other sportsmen. Along the way he befriended the Beatle George Harrison, appeared on the top BBC TV chat show with theatrical knight and fellow motorcyclist Sir Ralph Richardson, made adverts with heavyweight boxer and national hero Henry Cooper (the one who knocked Ali down so hard his seconds had to buy him time by slitting his glove), and generally became a household name. He was the only motorcycle racer your mother had ever heard of.
His death was received with saturation coverage by mass media that at least now acknowledge bike sport even if they don't cover it with any enthusiasm. Every network TV news bulletin headlined his passing; every newspaper gave it acres more space than the sport ever gets. My daily paper - a serious, liberal broadsheet - covered it in triplicate; on the news pages, as the lead on the obituaries page, and with a fulsome tribute by the star writer on the sports pages. All of which is in danger of obscuring one thing: that Sheene was a very fine motorcycle racer.
There were the two world 500 titles of course, and there was also the fastest ever GP win. Try an average of 135.067mph for ten laps of the old 8.7-mile Spa circuit in the Belgian GP of 1977. What isn't so well known is that he won a 50cc GP and nearly won the 125 title in his first year, only being beaten by the legendary Angel Nieto. Contrary to popular belief, he did ride in the Isle of Man TT - but only once. He was a vocal critic of the Mountain Circuit before and after he raced there. He was a strong voice for circuit safety in an era when riders were expected to race - and die - for the love of the sport and the benefit of organizer's bank balances. Along with sidecar driver Werner Schwarzel he was the first official riders' representative to the FIM. He squared that post with such activities as dynamiting the toilet block in the Imatra paddock by explaining that they, the powers that be, never listened to complaints until someone did something.
He never had any trouble getting an audience, they loved him because he had the knack of saying what you didn't expect. His first appearance after that Silverstone crash was on the BBC's Sports Review of the Year - a massively prestigious program. The first image was of those X-rays, then a bike started up and Barry rode on stage on an RG500. Murray Walker asked him, sotto voce, how his dreadful injuries were affecting him. Barry replied that he'd lost so much weight in hospital his crew had had to put extra padding on the seat to stop his arse hurting.
British motorcyclist loved him: no less a racer than Damon Hill described him as his first hero, and I loved the story on one tribute website of a guy who used to get in trouble with the police for turning the 'L' plates learners have to display upside down on his moped so they looked like Barry's number seven.
His name on an entry list would put thousands on the gate at any track in the UK, and Barry knew it. The 1979 Silverstone race with Kenny Roberts is still reshown on BBC TV as one of the all-time great moments in sport. After his second massive accident and come back, thousands of us crammed the overnight ferries to France to see his European comeback race at the French GP. Sure enough, he pulled out of the paddock and gave that little finger-waggling wave to the grandstands. The place went ballistic - us Brits, the French, everyone. He never won a GP again but it didn't matter.
We saw him for the last time at Donington this year at the British GP. Barry raced the two classic events on a Manx Norton, one on Saturday after qualifying, one on Sunday after the MotoGP. He won them both. Watching him on the rostrum again wearing black leathers, you remembered that's how he started. In the era of baggy black leathers and pudding basin helmets - in Barry's case on Bultacos tuned by his dad. Racing changed a lot while Barry was around and he did more to drive that change than most.
My personal favorite memory of Barry Sheene - my bit of Sheene folklore - came after the Belgian GP of 1984. I was hacking home on a French motorway, heading for the ferry on a Suzuki Turbo, when a rush of tire noise told me something serious was coming up behind me, it went past in a blast of cheerful horn tooting. A Rolls Royce traveling at warp-factor nine, license plate BS 7.
I stood up on the pegs, yelled inside my helmet and punched the air with my left hand.