Classic Racer 172 March/April 2015 by Mortons Media Group Ltd

Da 1 in yto 97 pi na 4 ctu 2 re 00 s

INSIDE: STAN DIBBEN

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NO PASSENGERS IN THIS GAME #172

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The Tornado blows out Colin Edwards reflects

Triumph T100 - The tale of a Tiger | Peggy Hyde - Beating the boys at their own game | Kim Newcombe - Kiwi People’s Champion | Bridgestone - The TT Team that never was |

No. 172 March/April 2015

UK£4.50

WHAT’S INSIDE CLASSIC RACER REGULARS _006

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Paddock Gossip

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Readers Write

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Foggy’s finest hour All the news

CCLASSIC LASSIC RACER RACER PEOPLE PEOPLE

STAN

DIBBEN

Storieswithin stories

Former sidecar champion, shopping trolley genius and master of powdered soups, and all in one man – meet Stanley Dibben, the man with the sparkle in his eyes. Words: Rachel Clegg Photography: Mortons Archive www.mortonsarchive.com

You have your say

Eric Oliver and Stan Dibben lead Cyril Smith and Les Nutt as they battle for the 1953 World title around Spa Francorchamps.

Why wouldn’t you?

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Stan Dibben

Stories within stories

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Colin Edwards

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Kim Newcombe

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Peggy Hyde

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“STAN DIBBEN’S FAVOURITE PHRASE IS ‘STORIES WITHIN STORIES’ AND HE CERTAINLY HAS A FEW TALES TO TELL.”

Tale of a Texas Tornado Against the odds One fast lady

Derek Minter

The King remembered

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Tale of a Tiger

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Fast Freddie’s 500

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Bridgestone

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people have lived a life as full as Stan Dibben. _30 Few Rachael Clegg shares the experience.

CCLASSIC LASSIC RACER RRAACER PPEOPLE EOPLE

THE TEXAS TORNADO

BLOWS OUT

TheColin Edwards’Story

For a generation, Colin Edwards competed at the World Championship level, first in World Superbike and then MotoGP.The two-time World Superbike Champion, with the unrivalled personality, tells Norm DeWitt about his early career in the USA and his rise to international stardom. Words: Norm DeWitt Photography: Norm DeWitt, World Superbike and Mortons Archive

Bruce Cox reflects

olin’s roots were in off-road, as he explains: “I did motocross and got my first bike aged three, started racing at four and then won national championships all the way up from Pee-wee, 60s, and 80s, and then I just burned out. My dad got me a streetbike and I got my driver’s licence, aged 16, on a 1988 FZR1000. “My dad said, ‘let’s go out to Oakdale Raceway and watch the races’. I was like… ‘ahhhh whatever’, I would rather be chasing girls. Jeff Covington was winning; he’d been road racing for a year. Well, I used to beat him in motocross and I thought that maybe I should give this a try.They talked me into doing a test day, and went really fast right off. I got my licence and was undefeated in my entire novice year. My dad borrowed a CBR600 that I raced in A, B, and C Supersport with a pipe and jet kit. Ronnie Lunsford had a stock CBR600 that I rode in production.Then OwenTechnology Solutions (OTS) came up with an RC30 and aTZ250 that I could race in Formula 1 and 2. I won 13 national championships between CMRA and Road Atlanta, and went undefeated that year. “Eric Klementich, of OTS, had race bikes, and if he saw some talent he’d say ‘come and ride my bikes’. When I showed up at Daytona in November I had an RC30,TZ250, and two 600s, I looked like a factory novice. I rode hard to get all that s***, but you just don’t see a novice show up with a stable of bikes like that.The last race of the year was an AMA race in Miami, and I wanted to ride myTZ250 in the pro class.They said you

have to do a year of Expert, but I’d been starting in the second wave with the novices and ended up beating all the Experts.They looked at my overall position in all the races to see if I had 300 points; I had something like 580 so they said, ‘We’ll give you a licence for that one race, to show us what you are made of, just don’t f*** it up.”

“I WAS OUT THERE RIDING MY ASS OFF. POLEN PASSED ME AND THEN PICOTTE STUFFED ME, I WENT BACK BY HIM AND THEN THE F***** RAN INTO THE BACK OF ME AND TOOK US BOTH OUT.” Jimmy Felice recalls: “There were a few guys that really showcased their talent at their first event; Kocinski and Colin stuck out.That Miami race was a pretty dangerous street course; I believe it was the last year they ran there. Chris D’Aluisio and I were battling for the championship. In the race Colin got the start and it took a couple of laps to get around him. It was a really technical race track; he impressed a lot of people.”

Colin takes up the story: “We finished second to Jimmy Felice. So they decided to give us a pro licence and in 1992 I rode the 250 in pro class.Yamaha stepped in and helped us with bikes, and Mr Klementich paid what he had to. My second pro race was Daytona and I won, and that season won five of the nine races. Here we are at Daytona, it was weird, but it was cool, it was awesome. I battled the whole way with my team-mate Chris D’Aluisio and I think Kenny Junior was third.” Next was Monterey. “I’d never been there; I got to Laguna and it was blind corners, flat and banked, high speed. I was not really clicking with it on that 250. Felice was on the Honda and at that time, whatever unit he was given didn’t have the motor we had. Me, D’Aluisio and Kenny Junior were on the same. You could draft by them and they could draft by you; everything was pretty damn even.” Jimmy Felice again: “Colin and Kenny Roberts Junior were kind of battling through that year, they were both rookies.The class was loaded with talent that year, with Richard Oliver, Robby Petersen, Kenny, me, Colin, and Chris; a lot of winners.The race that sticks out where me and Colin battled was Laguna Seca. “He was really fast and young, his ability was there. Kenny Junior got hurt at Loudon and that put a damper on those two fighting for the championship. I was trying to fight them with my Honda; theYamahas were better.The next year he got hired byTerry Vance and the rest was history. Everybody knew at that point that he was special.”

Game changing Honda

TT team that never was

CLASSIC RACER EVENTS _066

Daytona 200 1974

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Newark Show

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CRMC Awards

Racing the high banks

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Norm DeWitt tells the story of one of America’s most charismatic racers, _38 fast shooting Colin Edwards.

The show season starts CCLASSIC LASSIC RACER RRAACER MACHINES MACHINES

Classic silver

FAST FREDDIE

SPENCER5’S0

1985 NSR2

First in along line

but on the corporate chests, cards close to their prepared for always played their guessing as they Honda Racing have had the world’s press season they really titles. run up to the 1985 250 and 500cc World to challenge for both Freddie Spencer Words: Alan Cathcart

Takeuchi Photography: Hidenobu

done NSR250. But to have internally all along: Honda had given it cat out of the bag. the end on would have let the s with a little joke at that publicly that early onda enjoyed themselve FS250, because if Prix have labelled it the the expense of the Grand They might just as well of the 1984 season at with a single rider, that the 250 Vindelibly associated disguise the fact that ever a motorcycle was one of the four press corps. Eager to wonder to No Freddie Spencer. Spencer was bidding first NSR250 was with twin on which Freddie the office in Shreveport, 500cc World titles in d sits today in his home ever to win 250c and machines constructe built, and indeed become the first man of the reed-valve V4 this is the bike that Freddie fact a direct derivative Louisiana, because by factory test riders, same season was in of the piston-port of Japanese outings a factory team version except for a couple NSR500, rather than an NSR250 in 1985. racer. nobody else ever raced perfection, RS250R production e any the bike did its job to was usual, strictly discourag history now records, as As they, did GPs he contested, 10 only they Not a fairing, but victory in seven of the of the machine without carrying Spencer to In proving the slightest unauthorised viewing suchlike. Spain and in exhaust hand-outs in PR with only a broken finishes taking or also labelled it the RS250R-W conservative wet weather W stood for ‘What?’ not to figure that the mechanical frailty, with retrospect, it’s hard because in due course races. ‘Works’ as claimed, care of the other two n that ‘Wind-up’ rather than designatio the and the bike accorded the truth was revealed,

, BECAUSE IF EVER HAVE LABELLED IT THE FS250 “THEY MIGHT JUST AS WELLIBLY ASSOCIATED WITH A SINGLE RIDER, THAT A MOTORCYCLE WAS INDEL FIRST NSR250 WAS.”

ON THE COVER Texas Tornado Colin Edwards on his way to the title. 4488 C ClassicRacer lassicRacer

Alan Cathcart shares his exclusive access period test of _48 Fast Freddie Spencer’s NSR250.

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CCLASSIC LLAASSIC RACER RRAACER PEOPLE PEOPLE

March/April 2015 Issue 172 EDITOR

Malc Wheeler mwheeler@mortons.co.uk Dan Savage dsavage@mortons.co.uk

PUBLISHER

KIM

NEWCOMBE andthe KONIG 500 A short-lived success Star studded front row; Offenstadt, Newcombe, Kanaya, Agostini, Read, and Saarinen.

In the early 1970s, a young Kiwi living in Berlin, developed a Grand Prix winning bike using a modified outboard engine and took it to second place in the 1973 world 500cc championship; posthumously. Terry Stevenson tells a story the Kiwi and the Konig. Words:Terry Stevenson Photography: The Newcombe Family Collection, Rod Tingate and Terry Stevenson

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In a story of what might have been,Terry Stevenson reflects on _58 Kim Newcombe’s career.

CCLASSIC LASSIC RACER RACER PEOPLE PEOPLE

The beach looked inviting, but American racing fans knew the real action was on the legendary oval of Daytona with its packed stands. In the early Seventies, European riders started taking a serious interest in the Daytona 200 classic, and it wasn’t just riders who discovered the Daytona attraction; European fans were up for a good time as well. Words and photography: Jan and Hetty Burgers

A Disease called Daytona Fever Start of the first wave of riders in the 200-mile 750 race. (11) Don Castro, USAYamaha, (10) Giacomo Agostini, ItalyYamaha, (1) Kenny Roberts USAYamaha, (8)Teuvo Länsivuori, Finland,Yamaha, (55) Christian Bourgeois, France,Yamaha, (67) Chas Mortimer, England,Yamaha, (17)Yvon DuHamel, Canada, Kawasaki, (31) Akiyasu Motohashi, Japan,Yamaha, (39) Hurley Wilvert, USA, Kawasaki, (9) Gary Nixon USA Suzuki, (21) Gary Fisher, USA,Yamaha, (7) Barry Sheene, England, Suzuki, (57) Patrick Pons, France,Yamaha.

CONTRIBUTORS IN THIS ISSUE Jan Burgers, Rachael Clegg, Hamish Cooper, Bruce Cox, Dave Craggs, Norm DeWitt, Joe Dick, Jack Harrison, Russ Lee,Terry Stevenson and Julie Wheeler DESIGNER REPROGRAPHICS

Holly Munro Simon Duncan

GROUP PRODUCTION EDITOR

Tim Hartley thartley@mortons.co.uk

DIVISIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER David England dengland@mortons.co.uk 01507 529438 Lee Buxton ADVERTISING lbuxton@mortons.co.uk 01507 529453 Paul Deacon SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Steven O’Hara CIRCULATION MANAGER Charlotte Park MARKETING MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER Craig Lamb PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Dan Savage COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Nigel Hole ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Malc Wheeler EDITORIAL ADDRESS Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR UK WEBSITE www.classicracer.com GENERAL QUERIES AND BACK ISSUES 01507 529529 24hr answerphone Email: help@classicmagazines.co.uk Web: www.classicmagazines.co.uk ARCHIVE ENQUIRIES Jane Skayman, 01507 529423 jskayman@mortons.co.uk SUBSCRIPTION Full subscription rates (but see page 18 for offer): (12 months 6 issues, inc post and packing) – UK £27. Export rates are also available – see page 18 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value AddedTax. DISTRIBUTION COMAG,Tavistock Road,West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 7QE Telephone 01895 433600

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grandstands and a shock winner. _66 Packed Jan Burgers looks back at Daytona 1974.

USA SUBSCRIPTIONS CLASSIC RACER (USPS:706-150) is published bi-monthly by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ UK . USA subscriptions are $30 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Bancroft, WI and additional entries. Postmaster: Send address changes to CLASSIC RACER, c/o Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. 715-572-4595 chris@classicbikebooks.com Printed by William Gibbons & Sons,Wolverhampton ISSN No 1470-4463

CLASSIC RACER MACHINES

BRIDGESTONE

© Mortons Motorcycle Media, a division of Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

TheTTteamthatneverwas In 1965 at Suzuka, a British-Australian team raced in the Japanese Grand Prix. Australians, Jack Findlay and Jack Ahearn, joined by Englishmen, Bill Smith and Steve Murray rode a combination of AJS 7R, Norton 350, and British Greeves, Cotton, DMW, and Bultaco in the 250cc Class. Bill Smith explains what happened next. Words: Bill Smith and Malc Wheeler Photography: Bill Smith Archive

his was a time of Japanese domination and machines like the Honda 250cc six-cylinder, and Yamaha and Suzuki fours were dominating in the World Championships and would completely show up the outdated British bikes. It was also the time of a fierce battle between Jim Redman on the factory Honda and Mike Hailwood on the MV 350 for the world championship. Honda intended to sign up Mike and take him away from MV. The now famous words uttered by Hailwood, after testing the Honda at Suzuka, after being asked by the press what he thought of the Honda and replied: “It was rapid but handled like a bag of s**t!” Only Mike could get away with this criticism but Honda needed him more than he needed Honda. The team of Jack Findlay, Jack Ahearn, Bill Smith and Steve Murray was a complete shambles, arriving at Suzuka from Monza only to find that only three bikes from the first container had arrived. These were 350cc bikes and the second container with Smith’s 350 and the four 250s were still held up in Hong Kong for some reason. The team knew it had only been invited to Suzuka on the premise of showing to the Japanese fans just how slow and out of date the British bikes were, particularly the 250s which were to be competing in the same class with the Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki works bikes, which were putting out in excess of 50bhp compared to the British bikes of only 26bhp.

However, when the British bikes were started in the paddock they attracted huge interest from the press and the fans, basically out of sheer curiosity and the exotic Japanese bikes tended to be ignored. The team was hauled in front of the MFJ Jury and asked for an explanation of the missing bikes. Jack Ahearn absolutely hated the Japanese, the big Australian did not like being interrogated and showed his personal feelings by painting two zero designs in white on his red Jakeman fairing on the Manx 350, which really upset the Japanese organisers. Team GB-Australia had been allocated two pit garages with their names illuminated over the top. Much laughter was created when the team Bill Smith Racing Team was changed to Bill Smith Raving Team. It was never discovered how this happened but the names of Hailwood and John Cooper were bandied about. In the meantime Bill had been doing some investigating and discovered a large shed containing a lot of old Honda race bikes, which looked like they had been dumped and abandoned. He asked if he could borrow a CR77 305cc to use, as his bike hadn’t turned up and was given permission to use the abandoned bike. After sorting it out as best he could, Bill used it and finished sixth in the race with Ahearn eighth, Findlay ninth and Murray retiring with engine trouble. The other bikes turned up two weeks after the event due to being misplaced in Hong Kong after a shipping strike.

Having trouble finding a copy of this magazine? It’s easy to see from this image why Bill Smith struggled with the tiny Bridgestone 50.

“IT “IT WAS WAS ALSO ALSO TTHE BATTLE BBETWEEN IM RREDMAN EDMAN OONN TTHE HE FFACTORY ACTORY HE TTIME IME OOFF A FFIERCE IERCE BATTLE ETWEEN JJIM HONDA MIKE MVV 3350 HONDA AND AND M IKE HHAILWOOD AILW WOOD OONN TTHE HE M 50 FFOR OR TTHE HE WORLD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.” CHAMPIONSHIP.”

Why not Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month? Member of the Professional Publishers’ Association

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Bill Smith reflects on Bridgestone’s road racing efforts and how history _82 may have told a different story.

Independent publisher since 1885

ARCHIVE SHOT

Words Malc Wheeler Photography Mortons Archive – Mark Wernham Collection www.mortonsarchive.com

Foggy’s finest hour August 6, 1995

arl Fogarty arrived at Brands Hatch in August on the back foot, despite holding a comfortable lead in the 1995 World Superbike Championship. At the previous round, held at the testing Californian Laguna Seca circuit Foggy, by his standards, finished a lowly fifth and seventh, the first time he had been off the podium all season. Amazingly, Fogarty had never won a race at Brands in a long and successful career, but that was about to change. From the first qualifying session Foggy made his intentions known. He went on to claim pole position and dominate both races. In front of the largest crowd anyone could remember seeing at the Kent circuit, he led home championship rivalTroy Corser, Ducati, and Anthony Gobert, Kawasaki, and in the second leg Colin Edwards,Yamaha, and fellow Brit, John Reynolds, Kawasaki. Many racing pundits proclaimed it Foggy’s finest hour and by season’s end he took the title by a massive 139 points from Corser.Then, in a shock move, announced he had signed for Castrol Honda for 1996.

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CLASSIC RACER MACHINES

TheTALE

ofaTIGER

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TheTiger 100C wasTriumph’s challenger to the BSA Gold Stars and Norton Internationals in the Clubman’sTT races of the early 1950s. It acquitted itself well, with ‘top six’ leaderboard places in nine of the 10 races that were held between 1947 and 1956.These included 10 ‘top three’ finishes and a win in 1952. Bruce Cox tells theTiger 100C story and adds a personal touch.

Words: Bruce Cox Photography: Bruce Cox and Mortons Archive www.mortonsarchive.com

chance meeting at aVintage Motor Cycle Club local section evening recently sparked off discussions about theTriumph factory’s ‘under the counter’ involvement in racing during the early 1950s and especially about a particular machine said to be have been prepared at the factory for the 1954 Clubman’sTT on the Isle of Man. It was a nice surprise to walk into a recent meeting of our VMCC Banbury section and see John ‘Chalky’ White, newly returned from Spain, who I don’t think I’d seen even a handful of times in the more than 50 years between that evening and when I bought his Triumph Tiger 100C back in 1959.That was a very special Triumph indeed and a bike which, with the benefit of hindsight, both John and I wish we had never parted with. John remembers that when his elder brother,Tim, bought the bike from the Banbury motorcycle dealership of 1955 Clubman’s TT winner, Eddie Dow, sometime in the late Fifties, he was told that it had been a Triumph ‘works prepared’ bike built specifically to race in the 1954 Isle of Man Clubman’s TT. The Triumph factory was officially not involved in racing but is said to have specially prepared some machines for selected riders, including half a dozen of the 1954 Tiger 100C models with the swingarm frame new for that year.This has since been borne out by reading ‘between the lines’ some comments made by other Triumph riders in Bill Snelling’s excellent history of the Clubman’s TT – and by a contemporary road test by Motor Cycling journalist, John Griffith, that included riding a factory-prepared bike in the 1955 race.

Riding one of these ‘works prepared’ bikes in the 1954 Clubman’s TT was Tony Ovens from the Cirencester Motor Cycle Club and he finished fourth at 84.87mph, only fractionally down on speed around the four laps of the Mountain Circuit compared with the three BSA Gold Stars that finished ahead of him. The race winner, Alistair King, averaged 85.76mph with second place man, J B Denton close behind at 85.68mph and King’s friend and fellow Scot, Ewan Haldane also close in third place at 85.26mph. It was the Tony Ovens’ Triumph that John White and I had both owned. Before getting more involved with my personal story of that particular bike, it’s worth looking deeper into the story of the Tiger 100C ‘race kitted’ models. With the runaway sales success of his 1937 Speed Twin, Triumph designer Edward Turner’s mind turned to further developing the potential of his new parallel twin motor.The lighter and more powerful Tiger 100 that followed was developed as a sporting machine and, as with previous single- cylinder models such as the 90mph Tiger 90, the ‘100’ referred to the new bike’s claimed maximum speed. High compression, forged alloy pistons were used in the Tiger 100, which was one of the first to use this new technology, and the castiron cylinder barrel was held in place by eight studs rather than the five of the Speed Twin. There was also the pre-Second World War option of a bronze cylinder head, the use of this metal being popular for the heads of several sporting bikes in the Thirties as it dissipated heat more quickly than cast iron.

All-rounder, John Draper, 1951 ClubmanTT.

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CLASSIC RACER PEOPLE

THE TEXAS TORNADO

BLOWS OUT

TheColin Edwardsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Story For a generation, Colin Edwards competed at the World Championship level, first in World Superbike and then MotoGP.The two-time World Superbike Champion, with the unrivalled personality, tells Norm DeWitt about his early career in the USA and his rise to international stardom. Words: Norm DeWitt Photography: Norm DeWitt, World Superbike and Mortons Archive

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E I D D E R FAST F

S ’ R E C SPEN 250

R S N 5 198

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e n i l g n o l a n i t s Fir

t on the rporate chests, bu co r ei th to se clo their cards ey prepared for ve always played ess guessing as th pr ’s ld or Honda Racing ha w e th d ha season they really ld titles. run up to the 1985 250 and 50 0cc Wor th bo r fo e ng le al ch to Freddie Spencer Words: Alan Cathcart

Photography: Hiden

obu Takeuchi

to have done along: NSR250. But given it internally all d ha a nd Ho of the bag. t ou d e at the en uld have let the cat elves with a little jok blicly that early on wo pu t tha because if , onda enjoyed thems 250 x FS Pri the d d it expense of the Gran as well have labelle t the at jus t gh son mi sea er, that 4 ey Th 198 of the ated with a single rid t the 250 Vdisguise the fact tha le was indelibly associ to r cyc ge tor four Ea mo the a ps. r of cor e eve ss on pre g to Spencer. No wonder ie Spencer was biddin , 50 was with Freddie ort R2 ep NS t rev Sh firs in twin on which Fredd ice the off in today in his home d 500cc World titles sits an c ed uct 250 str win con to s r eed n eve machine V4 ddie built, and ind become the first ma ve of the reed-valve this is the bike that Fre fact a direct derivati Louisiana, because factory test riders, rt by -po gs same season was in ton ple of Japanese outin m version of the pis tea cou y a tor for t fac ep a n exc tha r 5. NSR500, rathe ed an NSR250 in 198 racer. nobody else ever rac job to perfection, its y an RS250R production did e e rag bik cou the , was usual, strictly dis history now records, as As y, the did ly y 10 GPs he contested on the t t No without a fairing, bu victory in seven of the to ne chi cer en ma Sp the ng of ryi g st car g the slighte unauthorised viewin ts and suchlike. In aust in Spain provin 250R-W in PR hand-ou with only a broken exh ather finishes taking or we t?’ t ha we also labelled it the RS ‘W ive for vat frailty, with conser ure that the W stood al fig nic to t cha no me rd ha it’s rse retrospect, , because in due cou o races. n ‘Works’ as claimed care of the other tw tion that na ‘Wind-up’ rather tha sig de the ed ord acc e bik the d an , ed the truth was reveal

ECAUSE IF EVER B , 0 5 2 FS E TH IT D LE EL B L HAVE LA “THEY MIGHT JUST AS WEL IBLY ASSOCIATED WITH A SINGLE RIDER, THAT A MOTORCYCLE WAS INDEL FIRST NSR250 WAS.”

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CLASSIC RACER PEOPLE

A Disease called Daytona Fever

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The beach looked inviting, but American racing fans knew the real action was on the legendary oval of Daytona with its packed stands. In the early Seventies, European riders started taking a serious interest in the Daytona 200 classic, and it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just riders who discovered the Daytona attraction; European fans were up for a good time as well. Words and photography: Jan and Hetty Burgers

Start of the first wave of riders in the 200-mile 750 race. (11) Don Castro, USAYamaha, (10) Giacomo Agostini, ItalyYamaha, (1) Kenny Roberts USAYamaha, (8)Teuvo LĂ¤nsivuori, Finland,Yamaha, (55) Christian Bourgeois, France,Yamaha, (67) Chas Mortimer, England,Yamaha, (17)Yvon DuHamel, Canada, Kawasaki, (31) Akiyasu Motohashi, Japan,Yamaha, (39) Hurley Wilvert, USA, Kawasaki, (9) Gary Nixon USA Suzuki, (21) Gary Fisher, USA,Yamaha, (7) Barry Sheene, England, Suzuki, (57) Patrick Pons, France,Yamaha.

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CLASSIC RACER PEOPLE

REMEMBERING DEREK MINTER April 27,1932–January2,2015

After a long illness, Derek Minter, who will always be remembered as THE King of Brands, passed away on January 2, 2015 at the age of 82. Words: Malc Wheeler Photography: Mortons Archive – Nick Nicholls Collection.

No less a man than Mike Hailwood described Derek Minter as his toughest rival, a fact illustrated by these two great shots. At Brands Hatch in April 1960 the Mint leads Mike on his way to victory. Check the angle of Mike’s rear wheel to see how hard he’s trying.The second shot shows two of the most stylish riders in history doing battle at Oulton Park a year later.

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Far left inset:The King wears his crown. Derek receives his trophy, and a kiss, from Lulu after winning the 1965 King of Brands race. Right:Time to retire. A reflective-looking Derek pours the champagne after his final race at Brands Hatch in October 1967. Below: Derek, number 5, pushes off alongside Bob McIntyre to start the 1960 SeniorTT, which saw Derek notch up that first single-cylinder 100mph lap.

f course Derek meant far more to the world of motorcycle road racing than being just the King of Brands, in a career that started in the 1950s and ended in 1967, during which he rode in every class on an amazing list of machinery. From 50cc Honda through to the 500cc Duke Gilera, Derek rode in all solo classes and even tested Chris Vincent’s BSA outfit. As well as being a short circuit ace, described by Mike Hailwood as his toughest opponent, Derek was a TT ace. He was the first rider to lap at 100mph on a single-cylinder machine in 1960, winning a wager with Stan Hailwood in the process. In 1962 he won the 250cc TT aboard a four-cylinder Honda, provided by the UK importer – beating the full factory bikes along the way – a victory that may well have cost him a works ride.

“DEREK TESTED CHRIS VINCENT’S BSA OUTFIT. AS WELL AS BEING A SHORT CIRCUIT ACE, DESCRIBED BY MIKE HAILWOOD AS HIS TOUGHEST OPPONENT, DEREK WAS A TT ACE TOO.”

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