Farewell To Barry Sheene, Britian's Ambassador To Racing

Farewell To Barry Sheene, Britian’s Ambassador To Racing

RACE WATCH

When Barry Sheene announced his retirement shortly before the start of the 1985 Grand Prix season, after 16 years of racing, it marked the end of an era.

Not because he was the best racer of all-time, though he was certainly one of them. Not because he was the richest and most famous. Not even because of his considerable quickwitted charm. It was because Barry Sheene was the best ambassador motorcycle racing has ever known. He had the rare gift of seeing far beyond the checkered flag. And while this may have upset his lessfarsighted track rivals, there’s no denying that Sheene elevated bike racing in the eyes of the general > public to new levels.

This gift is easily demonstrated. Sheene was a man the British national press fell in love with. Here was an Englishman who was beating the world. To top it off. he was good-looking, said the right things, was seen with the right people, dated beautiful women and drove a RollsRoyce. Even though his worldchampionship years— 1 976 and 1977—have been in the record books for almost a decade, Sheene is still a well-known sports figure. And not just in Britian. but all over the world, from the Far East to the wild West.

This didn’t happen by chance. It was something that Sheene worked at, as hard as he worked at winning races on a motorcycle. And he is a very determined man.

Sheene came into this world in London on September 1 1, 1950, and as cliche-like as it sounds, was born to race. His father, Frank, was a racer and later a tuner. The family spent every weekend at racetracks.

Sheene was a mechanically precocious child. He would play hooky from school and go down to the Brands Hatch circuit near London to watch practice. Phil Read and the other stars of the day remember him as an underfoot kid who was keen on offering unsolicited (and infuriatingly accurate) opinions on the tuning of their bikes.

Yet Sheene’s talent for riding was noticed almost by accident after Frank sent the young Barry out to break-in a pair of single-cylinder Bultacos for the grown-up riders to race. Sheene was not only smooth and easy on the equipment, he was damn quick as well. Rather surprised, Frank entered him at Brands Hatch that weekend, and within two years, Sheene was winning everything in sight. Then, leaving his more-experienced rivals behind, he moved straight on to the world championship series.

Sheene had scraped up the cash for an ex-works 125 Suzuki RT67, on which he finished second to 1 3time world champion Angel Nieto in his first-ever GP in 1970. The next year, the RT took him to his first GP win, in Belgium, and on to a secondplace overall placing in the title chase.

Sheene spent a disappointing 1972 riding works 250/350 Yamahas, unreliable bikes that he loudly condemned. But in 1 973, the two-stroke racing revolution moved up to the big bikes, and Sheene was at the vanguard, most notably on the three-cylinder 750 Suzukis. He helped turn those machines into masterly racers, winning everything in Britain, and the FIM 750 title.

Suzuki had more to come. The potent square-Four RG500 was waiting in the wings. And Sheene was just the man to ride it. He spent 1974 and 1975 helping to transform the RG from a fearsome beast into a reliable and ridable racer. Then he set out in quest of world championship trophies.

For the next two years, there was no stopping Sheene. Critics point out that the competition was not the fiercest—an about-to-retire Agostini, the Finn Tepi Lansivuori and GP rookie Steve Baker. Even so, Sheene outshone them by far, winning with monotonous regularity. And at that time, he stood at the pinnacle of international roadracing.

In 1978, the going got much tougher. The U.S. riders had arrived; and although one of Sheene’s toughest competitors, American teammate Pat Hennen, crashed out of racing at the Isle of Man, King Kenny Roberts put a three-year stanglehold on the 500cc world title. Sheene’s time as top dog was over.

In 1980, Sheene left Suzuki to join Yamaha. But the harsh words he had spoken about Yamahas back in 1972 had not been forgotten. And even though his determination and still-sparkling skill earned him a place on the works team in 198 1, he had to play second-fiddle to Roberts.

Sheene didn’t like that one bit, so for 1983 he moved back to Suzuki, only to find that the people there had not entirely forgiven him for critical comments he had made about Suzukis back when Roberts first started beating the RG500. To hear Sheene tell it, he never got the works machinery he expected, a fact he blames for his disillusionment and retirement two years later.

With that retirement, the world of motorcycle racing is a little poorer. Knees and elbows flailing, chin on the tank, Sheene’s style on a motorcycle was distinctive. For years, he was a permanent fixture in the top three of any race. Given the right motorcycle, perhaps he still could be.

Certainly, injuries couldn’t keep> him away. Call it courage. call it madness, but Sheene showed a miraculous ability not only to sur vive frightful crashes, but to come back fighting. The first was at Day tona in 1975, on the big Suzuki Triple. A back tire blew out at more than 175 mph on the banking. By all rights. Sheene should have died. In stead, he fought his way back to fitness and was racing again in just seven weeks, a thick, steel pin in his right femur. Then, he broke his left leg badly, requiring yet more steelwork.

When he crashed again at Silverstone in 1982, shattering both legs below the knee after hitting a fallen bike at 1 50 mph, it seemed that Sheene's career must finally be over. But it was not. This time his shredded bones were metal-plated, and the so-called "Bionic Biker" was back on the track for the first Grand Prix of 1983.

Now Sheene truly is gone, retired to try his luck at car racing. But not everybody in motorcycle racing loved Barry Sheene. He had too much success, too big an ego for

that. But not even his bitterest rivals could help but admire the determination and bravery of this very special man. -Michael Scott

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