Ten Great Riders

Ten Great Riders

Roadracing Dream Team

There is no way to pick the 10 greatest roadracers of all time. How can I leave out so many great names? What about Jimmy Guthrie? Or Freddie Spencer? Or Mick Doohan? Shall we list a top 100? The best I can hope for is to pick names that personify eras and let it be understood that racing is a contest among many greats. I propose this list. Let the arguments begin. -Kevin Cameron

Walter Handley-An 18-year-old Handley won the 250cc Ulster GP in 1922, beginning a long Isle of Man TI and continental career that brought wins in all classes at a time when men struggled to get to the races by train with their bikes in the baggage car. Handley was called out of retirement in 1937 to ride a specially tuned alcohol-burning BSA, the forerunner to the great, versatile Gold Star, the world's first true sportbike. Handley was killed in WWII and there is a 100-mph S-bend at the IT-lined with 15-foot stone walls-named in his honor.

Harold Daniell—After finishing third in his final |>00cc TT in 1950, Daniell |tas asked how the novel :win-!oop hassis of his factory Norton was to ride. His reply likened it to a “featherbed” and the name stuck. Daniell, in his signature roundlensed glasses, set a 91-mph TT lap record in 1938. This was his first Norton factory ride, and the record stood for 12 years. Daniell came back after the war-the tail end of the pre-swingarm era-to win both the 1947 and ’49 500cc TTs for Norton.

!Ieddy Frithrlth set the •1937 Isle of Man lap record and would win five ITs. In 1935, he won the 350cc Manx GP, joined Norton in 1936 and rewarded them with a first in the 350cc IT and a second in the Senior, then a Senior win the following year. Postwar, he was the first 350cc world champion under the new Grand Prix system. Frith made famous his distinctive style of leaning the bike much farther than he leaned himself, keeping his upper body nearly bolt upright.

John Surtees-Surtees was that rare combination, an engineer/rider. He is a very clear thinker and did much to bring together Italian multi-cylinder power with sensible chassis design. When he arrived at MV Agusta, the bike was, like a Buck Rogers spaceship, a mass of unproven futuristic concepts. Surtees drew the project together in a practical way and gave real meaning to the present truth that the best racing motorcy cles are in effect designed and optimized by their riders.

Mike Hailwood-“Mike The Bike” rode at a time when racing was an extremely dangerous profession; riders expected to see three to five of their colleagues die every year. Hailwood won repeated world titles in every class but 50cc and after years away taking a fling in F-1,came back to win the TT on a Ducati. Despite fingernails bitten to the quick, he contrived to do all this with an air of casual ease. In the minds of many, Hailwood and the Honda 250cc Six are inseparable-and immortal.

Phil Read-Read was a contentious champion who had to win at any cost, as if to finish second was to drown in mediocrity. He was my hero as a leader of the two-stroke revolution, riding Yamahas at a time when the price of power was a vanishingly small powerband and afterthought handling. When the Yamaha/Honda rivalry made the 250cc class the fastest in GP racing, Read took on Honda and Hailwood and beat them often. He later transferred his extraordinary drive to MV and won for that factory as well.

Geoff Duke-Duke was the warhead of Norton's postwar revival, riding the shocking new Featherbed Manx to a win at Blandford Camp in the spring of 1950. He then stopped the Italian multi-cylinder challenge at the IT-it would take more than naked horsepower to obsolete the single-cylinder engine. When Norton's idea of star rider pay stopped at $50 a week, Duke took himself to Italy to rule the world on Gilera Multis as easily as he had done on Nortons.

Glacomo Agostini-"Ago" collect ed many championships against near-zero opposition, thanks to the fact that MV Agusta remained in racing after 1957 ihi1e other Italian factories had withdrawn. Yet the sheer volume cihis success and the versatility hown late in his career com `m~nd recognition. He was able to switch from his usual MV four-strokes to Yamaha two trokes and win. Racing impre sario Eraldo Ferracci said of Ago, "Ah, but when he was he was an animal!"

and his ability tó~ change his riding style at will to implement new ideas are nearly unique in this sport. While he was still racing in Europe, Roberts put his whole professional identity on the line to change how sanctioning bodies treat riders. When he arrived in GP racing, men raced between walls for trophies and "start ing money." Today, thanks to the process of change initiated by Roberts, riders are paid as professional athletes and pro tected by improved procedures, air fences and gravel traps.

Valentino Rossi-His story is unfin ished, but he has won titles in 125, 250, 500cc and MotoOP, doing so with style, wit and cheerful intelli gence. His engineering partnership with crew chief Jeremy Burgess has changed the design of high-power motorcycles and continues to do so. As if three world titles in the 500cc and MotoGP classes were only a warm-up, he this year switched brands to underdog Yamaha and won again. Many of the best qualities ascribed to the other nine champions in this list seem to be combined in this one man.