VOL. 50 ISSUE 9 MARCH 5, 2013 P53
Remembering
BAZZA
Barry Sheene died 10 years ago.
Michael Scott looks back on the legend.
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
N
obody wins a World
Championship
without
special gifts. There has
never been a champion with
as many special gifts as Barry
Sheene.
It takes a while even to list
the most obvious. He was pretty
handy at riding motorcycles, for
a start ��� born to it. But that was
only the start.
Sheene was larger than life in
so many other ways. Ruthless
competitor, merciless rival, faithful friend, wit and raconteur, the
shrewdest of smart operators,
super-powered charmer, selfmade superstar, fighter against
injustice, hero at facing appalling
injury, acid-tongued commentator, fountain of wicked humor,
helicopter pilot, family man. And
most of all, able to generate a
stardom that reached far beyond
the world of racing into the heart
of his nation, and ultimately the
world.
If there is equivalent, it is another natural charmer, Valentino
Rossi. But there is an important
difference. Sheene never forgot
that he owed his journey from
jumped-up London kid to the
Rolls-Royce lifestyle not just to
his talent, but to his fans. Right
to the end, Barry put hours and
days and his heart and soul into
developing a personal relationship with them.
The reward is an adulation that
has survived long after his tragically early death at only 52, 10
years ago on March 10.
It was the same with his racing.
Sheene was dominant in 1976
and 1977. Nobody rode the classleading Suzuki like him. Then
came Kenny Roberts, along with
a troubling viral illness. Barry was
beaten to second in his own kingdom, and made his only wrong
career move ��� he switched from
Suzuki to Yamaha expecting to
get full factory support. It never
came.
Sheene was still star of the
show after he stopped winning.
The fans never lost faith in the
lean years. Neither did Barry.
Roberts told me, years later:
���If Barry had stayed with Suzuki,
he would have won more World
Championships.���
In a way, he never needed to.
In Britain in the 1970s, you
couldn���t miss Barry Sheene. He
was everywhere: getting awards,
guesting on TV, lighting up the
room at receptions, on the front
pages ��� and not only of motorcycle magazines. And if not in
person, in life-size effigy on all
the Texaco garage forecourts:
cheeky grin adorning an iconic
image.
Barry was a British winner, in
the same year that James Hunt
won the F1 title. The playboy racers were the big time.
But there was more to it than
that. With Sheene, there always
was. He was a hero not just for
going fast, but something much
more human. For in 1975, he���d
survived a crash at an estimated
180 mph-plus at Daytona. By
coincidence it was all filmed, including the grisly surgery repairing his snapped femur and a host
of other fractures. The British TV
documentary became an inspir-
