Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Barry Sheene Remembered The ~ey factor was the Suzuki RG500 -'the square four GP machine designed to beat the Yamaha that Bmo. And a series of nonfinishes on a Yamaha, because in Britain he was liked to wear them unzipped all the V -twin Derbi supplied by the factory. Sheene nicknamed it "a non-works bike" and switched to a private already a star in the making. Very much so. And he didn't seem way down past his ~elly button. With a streak of natural blond in his now- to need good results to play the fame game - during this year the Barry dark hair, the girls hardly knew where would in 1975 become the first two- to look first. stroke to win the 500cc title. That Barry famous better than any other racer was in the future. In 1973, Barry had an updated version of the air-cooled combination of wit and invective to before and perhaps since - how to 500 twin and the more modern water- play on his quick wit and the spirit of cooled 250. Finnish legend Jarno Saarinen won the title on his; Barry fell foul of reliability problems. And an even wider audience. His Donald Duck helmet sticker was already well known. He painted his name on the back of his helmet, a first. And then cooled 750cc triple to play with. In Britain, he ran riot on both of them, being Sheene, he was outspoken about them. His words were poison to he bought the white leathers. The color alone was revolutionary; Barry Yamaha. Sheene Fan Club was formed, and he gained a weekly column to bring his The results alone got him noticed by the right people (Barry made sure of that), and in 1972, his reward was a factory Yamaha, the first water- The Greatest Race It wasn't just Barry Sheene's greatest race. It was one of Kenny Roberts' as well. One of the greatest in GP history. And certainly the best GP that not only the tens of thousands of spectators at Silverstone had ever seen, but also many millions more who saw it on TV. In fact, the BBC included it as the only motorcycling clip in a series of Great Sporting Moments. And it remained breathtaking. The 1978 season had been spoiled for Sheene by two factors. One was a virus he picked up at the first round, in Venezuela. The second was Kenny Roberts, now in Europe full time after several threatening performances in the Trans-Atlantic match races. Barry won the first race in Venezuela then stayed close as Roberts piled on the wins. Victory in Sweden, with Roberts crashing out, put Barry back in the hunt, just three points adrift. But a breakdown at the next round at Imatra (Barry angrily blamed Suzuki's factory mechanics for failing to renew the main bearings as he'd requested) opened the door to Roberts again. The American took Barry's crown at his first attempt. Sheene won Venezuela again in 1979, but various misfortunes - including several mechanical problems - meant he was out of the running by the time they arrived at Silverstone for the British GP, the penultimate round of the season. Sheene was riding as well as he had ever done - certainly harder and better than in his championship years, when by his own admission he'd only been trying at 70 or 80 percent. Kenny's arrival had changed that. Sheene had never taken kindly to strong opposition and made a point of trying to grind rivals down on and off the track, using wit, intelligence and his power with a devoted press. A series of derogatory remarks about Roberts over the previous two seasons hadn't gone down that well, however. As Kenny said to me at the time: "If I'm crap, and I'm beating him, what does that make him?" Sheene had also fallen victim to the Tall Poppy syndrome, an affliction particular to British sportsmen, who can rely on the support of press and fans when they are underdogs and on the way up but find little sympathy once they get knocked off the perch. Then there was the trouble with Suzuki. Sheene's poor scoring performance early in 1979 had led to the factory's supporting Italian Virginio Ferrari and Dutchman Wil Hartog. This infuriated Sheene and led to friction between the British team and the Japanese principles. It was time to set the record straight, and Silverstone offered the opportunity. Barry had only one objective: to win his home race. He came within three-hundredths of a second of doing so. The 11 th of 13 rounds, with Roberts leading Ferrari by seven points, the American's agenda was clear - he only needed to keep finishing ahead of the Italian. Sheene had handling bothers in practice and qualified fourth, behind the Yamahas of Roberts and Johnny Cecotto and the Suzukis of Hartog and Ferrari. Even after practice, Sheene was still fiddling with damping. Luckily, his final guess paid off. "I knew that as soon as I rode the warm-up session on race day," he said later. Hartog had led away, Ferrari, Sheene and Roberts in tow. After one-third distance, Roberts upped the pace around the fast airfield circuit, where average speed approached 120 mph. Only Sheene could match him, catching up by half distance. For the next 13 laps, they tested and probed at each other, alternately raising and lowering the pace, taking turns to play cat and mouse. They even had time to exchange insults - the raised single finger, Sheene insisted afterwards, had been a friendly greeting "a little light relief in a titanic battle." It would obviously come down to the last lap, and each had a plan. For Sheene, it was to start it close behind, pounce on Roberts halfway around, then use his greater speed through the last sweeping Woodcote comer to stay in front. "I knew that was one point where I was faster than Kenny, so if I started the last lap within 25 feet or so, I could win the race." Roberts recalls it 25 years later: "From my side, I thought I was the fastest guy. But there was another Silverstone I thought I'd won, and I lost it." (Versus Jack Middelburg, in 1981). "But for the backmarker at the start of the last lap, I'd have done more," Roberts said. "I had the comer before Woodcote wired. I was the only guy I ever saw go through there wide open. I would have used that on the last lap - if you led the last straight into Woodcote, you'd won the race." But the backmarker was there, as they powered around Woodcote. It was George Fogarty, Carl's dad, being lapped for the second time. Roberts went inside him; Sheene was stuck outside - and he started the last lap with a gap more like 150 feet. An unbridgeable chasm. Or was it? Sheene had already broken the lap record, but the last lap was his masterpiece. By the end of the 2.9 miles, the Suzuki was right up with the Yamaha again. Into Woodcote, Kenny was relatively slow and tight. Barry went sweeping around on the outside. For a moment, it seemed he might make it. In fact, Roberts was right. There was no way around. As he eased the power on and drifted out toward the white line, he didn't even see Barry desperately surging up on his left. Roberts hit the paint; Barry puffed up dust on the other side of it. He crossed the line just 0.03 of a second behind. He so nearly succeeded. 36 MARCH 26, 2003' eye • e n • _ s understood how to be rebellious youth, his fashionable looks and easy charm, backed by real racing speed, determination and winning the MCN Superbike title on the 750 and the Shellsport 500 title conspicuous courage. The way he shrugged off injuries proved that, forcing his recovery after smashing on the twin. British racing pretty much belonged to Barry in 1973, and at the end of it he won the MCN Man his collarbone at Imola in 1972 was of the Year award for the first of four times. just the start of it. Suzuki's Maurice Knight had been He was making his name at world angry when Barry signed with Yama- level as well, up from tiddlers to the ha, but racing manager Rex White biggest category of all, wheeling his Suzuki to a tense and narrow victory persuaded him to take him back in 1973, on the grounds that "no matter what, he's the best rider in Britain." This renewed relationship defined Barry's greatest racing years, and some of Suzuki's also. Friends over Jack Findlay in the FIM 750 Series, a World Championship in all but name. Barry also made his 500-class debut in 1973, failing to finish on the &JUDe{} dhdhl/4! Barry Sheene regarded every other racer as a rival and was famous for dealing with them, highly effectively, one by one, Barry was always a hard man to beat on the track. He was even harder to beat off it. A teammate? "TIle first person you have to beat: according to Barry. Few who rode alongside the legendary Londoner enjoyed the experience, as Barry turned on the remorseless pressure, Riders on rival teams came next. Sheene's commanding personality meant he put the screws on all of them, as well. Sometimes it might be through verbal intimidation: Sheene was an expert at using his columns in the press to put down other riders. Like his threatening new American Pat Hennen, signed on by Suzuki for a pittance. "If you pay peanuts," said Sheene, "You get a monkey." Sometimes it might be by playing team politics better: using charm and persuasion to make sure of the best equipment. This worked wonders at Suzuki but took time when Barry switched to Yamaha. Sometimes a rider might be disarmed by a charm offensive. And nobody could be more amusing or charming than Sheene. Whatever it was, Sheene was a master at finding the chink in anyone's armor. And inserting the needle. One of his early Suzuki teammates in 1973 and 1974 was Stanley Woods, who later recaUed how Sheene would steal a march time and again when new factory parts arrived, using his network of informers to hot-foot it to the London headquarters to watch the crate being opened. John Williams was another who seldom saw eye to eye with Sheene and was uncomfortable in the number two position in 1976 and '77. But Williams also owed his life to Sheene, who stopped and cleared his windpipe, blocked with dirt, after a crash in practice in Sweden. WiUiarns died soon afterward in a road-racing crash at the 1978 Ulster GP. One teammate who might have been a match for Sheene was Irishman Tom Herron, who would play the same sort of tricks (disguising tire choices or otherwise disinforming) back at Barry. Sheene respected his new teammate, but the relationship was cut short when Herron lost his life at the North West 2000 in his first season with the factory Suzuki GPteam. Yet another was Keith Heuwen, when Sheene returned to Suzuki in 1983. Barry managed to get hold of the factory engine, but Heuwen felt he was now the faster rider. Sheene, he told MCN, was a spent force, just "a so-called superstar and chief bullshitter." But Sheene never really did have a teammate who posed a serious threat - especially after Hennen's career was cut short in the middle of the 1978 season in an Isle of Man crash, Sheene chose his next teammate, who was already a friend and was to remain a best mate to the end of his life: Steve Parrish. Barry nicknamed him Stavros. and the pair became notorious paddock pranksters. But no feat was more daring than Stavros' putting on Barry's gear and qualifying his bike (on the front row) for the 1979 Mallory Park Race of the year, while Barry wasn't even at the track, instead getting urgent medical attention for the injured knee he had tweaked in morning practice. "I qualified his bike faster than mine - and then he beat me in the race," said Parrish. "I suppose I was never a threat to Barry, which helped our friendship. Not on bikes, anyway," said five-time World Truck Racing champ Parrish. "It was the other way round on four wheels. "But he used to like to hate the others - like Wi! Hartog, Pat Hennen and Kenny Roberts." Sheene generated more than animosity among his racing rivals. There wasn't one who didn't respect him and owe him a debt of gratitude. Sheene single-handedly mastered the business of being a racer and was the first to earn millions from the sport. His success had a knock-on effect: every other racer took the benefit as well.

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