Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Gary Nixon, Barry Sheene and Sheene's father, FrancO. plus,a canine friend prepara to depan Manor House. Sheene's schedule is jam-packed. Here he's taking pan in a Wet Bike demonstration at a British marina. Hangin' out with y Sheene By Gary Nixon Tlwse cwse to TOtJd racing know tJw.t two-time World CJw.mpion Barry Sheene wears 11 Gary Ni%on T-shiTt under his kathers when he's rl1cing. Why' Two-time Grand NIltionIll CJw.mpion Gary Ni%on, one of the grel1test rl1cers of I1U time, WI1S Barry's hero when Sheene WI1S I1n up I1nd coming road racer I1nd Ni%on WI1S I1lrel1dy I1n estl1blished star. Sheene feels the Ni%on T-shirt is 11 "good luck piece." With Ni%on retiredfrom rl1cing, the hero rok has switched -- Sheene is now Nixon's hero. No stronger mutUtZl admiration society exists in the world of motorcycle rncing. What foUows is Nixon's descnption of 11 VIlCation trip he took to England last month to spend some time with Sheene. arry Sheene has been inviting me to come to his new house (actually built 800 yean ago) for the last three and a half yean. I told him I wasn't sure I could afford a vacation. He said, "I know Freddy Laker and all you have to do is get to New York and I'll take care of everything else." I couldn't refuse an offer like that. I did some checking around and World Airways wem from Baltimore (near my home) straight to London. I decided to go out of Baltimore instead of going through New York. Upon arriving at 7 a.m. Wednesday at Gatwick Airpon (Barry lives less than two miles from the center of the village of Garwiclt), .I was met by Barry B 28 and there was no wait as I found out later he had collected me before customs and I didn't even have to clear customs. We went directly to Barry's house. the Manor House, which was built in the 11 th, century and ·has had sections added on over the years to the point that it now has S2 rooms. Barry had the inside remodeled when he moved in three and a half years ago and it is really beautiful. We talked for a while and he pulled some money out of his briefcase and said, "Here is the money for your air fare." I told him never mind, that I didn't use the free Lakers Airways ticket, so I'd pay. Barry said, "No, I told you everything was on me'" After going back and forth three times, I let him win. He showed me to my room, where I could clean up after my seven-hour plane ride. That is when I found out how tall British people were in the 11 th century. In the center part of the upstain part of Manor House, there are two doon that are only five-feet tall After a couple of days, I learned which doon I needed to duck for. After I freshened up, we got in his neat helicopter and wem to the airpon where his Cessna twin-engine plane was !>dng worked on and where they were going to do the annual check-up on his helicopter. We got in the Jet Ranger helicopter he was reming ($800 per hour!), but the person who rented it before Barry had left the ignition on and it wouldn't start. So we got in one that looked similar to his except it had big pontoons on it. It didn't ride as smoothly as his; Barry said that was because of the size and weight of the pontoons. Nick Harris, of Motor Cycle Weekly, was waiting at Manor House to do a story on Barry as a preview to Barry's writing an exclusive column for the weeltly British paper. After the interview, we enjoyed a delicious steak dinner prepared for us by Barry's girlfriend Stephanie. Jewels, a friend of Barry's, showed up with the visas Barry would need for an upcoming trip to Japan. After malting sure evc;rything was in order, we went to the Garwick Penta to have a drink. Barry introduced me to Freddy Laker of Laker Airways and after talking with Freddy for a while I told him he was the second best man I had met. He asked me who was the best and I .told him Barry was. That got a laugh from both of them. We made it an early night. because Barry was going to take a test the next day. The test was a requirement towards !>dng licensed to fly a Hughes 500 heli· copter. Road racer Steve "Stevros" Parrish showed up the next day to go with us for the test. Barry said if the helicopter wouldn't get us off the ground safely, I'd have to stay at the Manor House and wait for them. The helicopter got off the ground, but it didn't feel safe to Barry, so he put it back down and I waved goodbye. I was told later that Stevros didn't know what the test was all about and he sat in the back seat during it. The instructor asked Barry if he was ready for 'a dead engine landing, and promptly turned the engine off. Barry said he could see Stevros sit straight up and take a big gulp of air. After three dead engine landings, which require you to point the helicopter at about a 45-degree angle towa~ds the ground and go down at 120 mph, and then about 150 feet before you'd hit the ground you pull it back at about 45degrees the other way to slow it down and then set it on the ground, Barry had passed the test. Hearing Stevros describe the maneuven, I'm kind of glad I wasn't with them. That night we watched video tapes of a Donnington race and talked until around:!l a.m. The next morning I was up flrSt and went out to Dale Singleton's caravan to see if he wanted any coffee. Dale showed me the toes he didn't have anymore due to his Silverstone crash, and then he was off to the airpon to fly home to Georgia to see his doctor. When I went back inside I noticed a lot of boxes of wine someone had delivered. I also noticed a bill for $1,1001 Stevros and I put the wine away in Barry's wine room and then we were off to a boat show where Barry and Stevros were going to demonstrate some Wet Bikes. It was about SO-minutes by helicopter to where the boat show was to take place: the only problem was no one had told Barry where he could land the helicopter. There was an Army base nearby, but Barry thought we had better not land there, so we landed across the channel in an open field. A worker in the area came down the road to give us a lift to the Army base where, hopefully, someone could tell us how to get to the boat show. After Barry signed autographs for everyone in the place. they took us by boat across the channel to the show. The Wet Bike people asked me if I wanted to ride one of them, but after checking the temperature of the water, 1 said no. Barry and Stevros were in the water 10r about two and a half hours and then after three TV interviews, the Army's rescue boat took us back across the channel and we headed for the Manbr House for more of Stephanie's great food, a Sambuca and more talking till about S a.m. Saturday, Barry and I went to the local grocery store and just about everyone in the store recognized him. At the check-out counter, I was packing the goods and Barry was signing autographs. The clerk told him the total and he wrote a check for the amount. Then the clerk who had just been watching him give his autograph to everyone asked him for identification. I almost fell over. Next we stopped by a liquor store to get some bordes of Sambuca. After Barry signed an autograph for everyone in the store, he presented a . credit card to pay for the merchandise and they told him that they would have to run it through for a credit check. I almost fell over laughing. When we got back home, Barry asked me if I wanted to take a ride on his new Yamaha XSllOO to go and what was in at the local movie theatre. I said sure, seeing as how I trust him so much in his Rolls-Royce, it would be no problem on the bike. Wrongll got on the back of his new bike which had only one mile on the odometer, and we took off for the theatre. We hit the fint straight and he took the bike up to 120 mph, Then we got to the flrSt round-about and I was g9ing to do, a Barry Sheene -- you know, drag the knee in the comer -- and I almost fell off the back. We stopped to get some gas and I told him he freaked me out because I didn't know the road. He said, "Trust me, Nickers." As we left' the gas station/bike shop he said. "Let's do a wheeliel" I told him not to flip the #·~%&@#t I grabbed him around the chest and he pulled off a ,pretty good wheelie. With a little practice and some help from Doug Domokos, we could probably be pretty good. . After the wheelie, I found out that if I squeezed real hard on his chest he would shut off because he couldn't breathe. On the way home, everytime I saw a danger sign or a roundabout sign, I would squeez~ real hard and he would shut off. Barry's beautiful sister, Maggi Sman was at the Manor House when we got back with her little boy, Scott, and little girl, Paula. She had come over to see her mother and father and visit with us. After another wonderful dinner we all went to the movies to see James Bond's For Your Eyes Only. We got there early, but the manager said there was a B movie we could watch until it was time for the show to stan. I didn't cinch the name of the movie, but it was filmed in Australia and was about some bad guys and bikes. It was spectacular, to say the least. They had one shot of a guy and a bike getting run over by an eighteenwheelerl The next day Barry told me not to eat much because that evening we were going to have a Sunday dinner. It was another great Stephanie-prepared see

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