Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

c.o 00 0') ,....; Three to four times a year, Surtees will "put one of my old bikes together and go out and have a race." Surtees' Manx Norton in 1981, (Above) The year is1951 and Surtees is the passenger in his father Jack's Vincent sidecar. (Below) Surtees and MV at the Belgian GP - 1957. John Surtees (Continued from page 30) 34 "Certainly less than the top-end power of people like Ferrari and such likes. But they (Cosworth) had reawly available power on tap. And I think that now you get into this stage of development on tires and sizes of tires that you are, and there isn't much room to go more. I think, particularly with the emphasis being on perhaps slowingcircuits upand such like, that one has got to think more and more of what's the pOint of 130-140 horsepower when you're probably better off with 10 horsepower less with the thing working from 8000 rather than having to be kept at 10,000 rpm." While the Cosworth cars won with less horsepower, the particular 1973 engine that sat in the monocoqueframed BattleofTheTwinsentry has had a less-than-respectable career in comparison 10 its Cosworth-car siblings. Unfortunately, the Daytona debut may be the only and last time the bike crosses tbe Atlantic, according to Surtees. "You see this engine originally had been the only engine at Cosworth that had never won a race and it had a very dubiou reputation," Surtees said. "Bob (Graves) has to a large extent achieved his goal in showing that a '73 engine with a minimal amount of work had been brought out and can be competitive. He's won his first race (in Englana) and he's been well-placed against very strong competition here. "I think he may be tempted 10 continue if for instance a youngish rider emerged with ability plus enthusiasm and a nice attitude. Then he may be tempted to continue, otherwi e I think he's likely 10 get on to preparing some old cars he's gOI. If someone came along and offered him somethingofthe money he spent on it (the Cosworth), they could buy it at this momenl." While the Battle of The Twins is in a growing stage in the U.S., the class is in danger of dying in England. Surtees likes the class and doesn't want to see it die. "I think that too much emphasis has gone inlO classic racing," he says. "I think if anything we have too much classic raang in England and so all the sort of people that would normally run in the Battle of The Twins type events are all busy in classic racing with the G-50s and the odd Norton, BSAs and God knows what else. Which is good, but I think at the same time you Cdn have too much. I think it would be good 10 keep a balance. I think it is wrong to run so many races and wear out so much old machinery which will in the end mean that nothing is original on the machines. I would like to see a balance between the two." Surtees himself has a collection of classic motorcycles that include an MV and a 350cc Benelli. He occasionally sneaks out in the garage of his house ne-dr Brands Hatch 10 tinker with his bikes; three to four times a year he can be seen at the local British short circuits rdcing them. "I never rode a motorcycle ag-din until 1978," Surteesexplains. "I went Cdr racing at the end of 1960 when I retired from motorcycling, and I never touched a motorcycle until 1978 when I was invited to go to the Isle of Man to do a demo lap. MV said they would send a bike, so I thought, 'Oh well, why not?' I managed to get myoid leathers on again and did a lap, and on that lap I thought, 'I could enjoy this.' So I rdked together whatever pieces I could which I still had laying around, and put some bikes together. And since then I've put a few more together and I ride them in three or four events a year." Surtees remembers his mOlOrcycle years with good memories and that's the major reason he stays involved with motorcycling. He is a regular at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, does color work for TV and is basically a motorcycle enth usiasl. Despite his success in Formula One cars, the enthusiasm seems lost. He doesn't agree with the big corpordte sponsors that have taken over Formula One rdcing and so he stays away. "There are highs and lows in both (forms of racing), but basically I made less mistakes in motorcycle racing than I made in car racing, off the track," Surtees said. "Most of the mistakes I made happened to be 0(£ the track and in the political scene in car racing. I was too much of an enthusiast, which is a problem with motorcyclists. I chose often to drive the wrong cars at the wrong time purely becduse some feature or something else excited me. So I could have been more cool and calculating on the car side, but I remember with tremendous fondness my motorcycle racing days. "I have high spots I look back on in the Cdr side, but I have low spots I wouLd prefer to forgel. I have good memories of the struggle we had 10 • put our little team together when I started making cars and of the initial successes we enjoyed. Butl have very, very bad memories of certain relationships with the modern type of drivers and the world of sponsorship. This is one of the reasons why I have virtually nothing to do with car racing now." A man of Surtees' longevity in the sport of motorcycle racing has seen many things come and go. He sees what's happening in rdcing as mostly positive, but he's still wary of big sponsorship. "Becduse motorsport is relatively young comparoo to the very old and established ones and because many people in the media and other areas don't understand it, they often shy away from it," he said. "Often it doesn't get the true coverage to the entertainment it can provide. But the fact that in many places motorcycling is not quite socially acceptable has saved motorcycling (rom some of the worst aspects of commercialism. Such as what's happened to the Formula One cars and the enormous and quite false 'inflation of costs. Okay, the costs of motorcycl ing have grown tremendously, but the inflationary costs which have been introduced into Formula One Grand Prix racing cannot in any way be justified just purely through design and technical features that have come into the sport. "It basically is that if the money can be drawn, somehow or another, we'll find a way of spending it. That's not good for the long term of the sport. It means that every year you have to have a growth and that can endanger the sport. So in a way motorcycling has perhaps escaped that. It's good to see some of the sponsors being very stable. I was very disappointed in seeing Champion's statement (withdrawing from motorcycle racing support). I would have thought in my connectlons with Champion that someone wasn't quile in touch. The motorcyclist is the main person who is likely to go along and change his plug; far more so than a Cdr owner and such like. Sol'm very sorry to see after such a long and very interesting history to see Champion go. But on the whole many sponsors have stayed in the game." Most of Surtees' time these days are spent away from racing. He owns a small company in England that handles property investments such as office units and industrial complexes. He also res!Ores period houses and refurbishes them in correct furnishings for the erd from which they came. ,·It's a passion of mine," he said. "Particularly of the Tudor, Jacobin and Elizabethan periods. So I have that s-ide and just to switch on loccasionally get cracking in my little workshop and put ont' of my old bikes together and go out and have a race." •

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