FEATURE
P54
BARRY SHEENE ��� 10 YEARS AFTER
Barry Sheene
immigrated to
Australia after
retiring and
became a top-level
motorsports television
commentator.
ing show of extraordinary courage. The cameras also recorded
his typically cheery remarks when
the anesthetics wore off. ���I���ve lost
enough skin to make a sofa,��� he
said; and later: ���If I was a horse,
they���d have shot me.���
Sheene was back on a race
bike within 49 days, and won his
first two 500cc GPs that year. He
would prove his courage again in
1982, after smashing both legs
and both wrists in a horrific crash
at Silverstone. Once again he
fought back. Perhaps courage is
his greatest defining factor.
Sheene was an international
darling and household name. This
was something new to motorcycle
racing, and not everyone knew
how to deal with it.
Barry did. Clever, quick-witted,
hard working and shrewd, he turned
talent into gold. It shone so brightly
it���s sometimes easy to forget about
the quality of the racer who made it
happen in the first place.
Londoner Sheene grew up
among motorcycles. His father
Frank was caretaker to a large
hospital building, and a motorcycle
man through and through: fiddling
and fettling in the well-equipped
hospital workshop, tuning twostrokes, entering promising riders
and for a while agent for racing
Bultacos. The flat was a high-level
racing hub. Frank turned wrenches
for Phil Read once at the TT; World
Champion Bill Ivy was a Queens
Square regular; Barry���s sister Maggie would marry prominent racer
Paul Smart.
Barry had plenty of hands-on
technical knowledge. Then it happened, while breaking in one of
Frank���s Bultacos on his first laps of
Brands Hatch. Blow me down, the
kid was good.
To say the least.
Sheene understood bikes, and
also how important it was to have
the right one. He risked much buying an ex-factory Suzuki 125, but it
was bike enough to show everyone
how good he was, and it opened
many doors. Not least to Suzuki.
Sheene and the
Suzuki in the
rain in 1975.
