Racing’s Greats: Mike Hailwood

Few names in motorcycle racing evoke more emotion than that of Mike Hailwood, a legend to two generations of racing fans the world over. Don Cox, in the third of his Racing’s Greats series, reports on the man who won 12 TTs, 77 Grands Prix and nine world championships, and who threw Honda’s works racing shock absorbers into a lake without getting the sack…

“Before him lies the prospect of becoming the most successful rider in the history of motorcycle racing,” wrote British bike and car commentator Murray Walker of a 20-year-old Stanley Michael Bailey Hailwood.

Walker made his prophetic statement in 1960, a year before Mike Hailwood won an unprecedented three Isle of Man TT races in a week and brought Honda its first world championship, on a 250 four supplied by the British importer.

Hailwood in the next seven years boosted those tallies to 12 TT victories (including another treble), 77 grand prix wins and nine world road-racing championships. He won at circuits as diverse as the USA’s Daytona and Ulster’s Dundrod.

SMB Hailwood was the first rider to win four consecutive world 500 championships, and the first to win world championships in three classes (500 in 1962-65, 350 in 1966-67, and 250 in 1961 and 1966-67).

“Mike the Bike” as the British press dubbed him, was a legend before his 28th birthday, not simply for his number of wins, but for the way he fought for them.

Hailwood’s victory in the 1961 Senior (500) TT – when he averaged 100.6 mph on a Norton single to hound Gary Hocking’s MV four into submission – made him Britain’s favourite motorcycle son and a boyhood hero to anyone who read English motorcycle publications.

And if that status needed any confirmation, then consider Mike’s victory in the 1967 Senior TT, where his battle was as much with the evil handling of his Honda 500 four as with rival Giacomo Agostini (MV 500 triple). Hailwood’s fastest lap of 108.77 mph stood as the IOM outright record until mid-way through the next decade!

But that was just one phase of the Hailwood legend. Honda withdrew from motorcycle racing after 1967 and paid Hailwood his 1968 contract fee not to contest the world motorcycle championships for any other manufacturer.

Mike turned again to racing cars, a field where his results never really reflected his talent. Serious leg and foot injuries cut short that career in 1974.

Mike never lost his love of motorcycle racing. He made one-off race appearances, on a Yamaha 350 at a Silverstone international, a works BSA 750 in the 1971 Daytona 200 miler, and on historic Nortons in Australia in 1976-77.

In July 1977, Hailwood wrote to his biographer and mate, British journalist Ted Macauley, from his adopted home in Auckland to say he was “thinking of having another bash at the TT” in 1978. He was then 37 and hadn’t raced at the Island since 1967.

The Magician

Would it be a fairytale comeback, or would Hailwood blemish the legend? Mike’s associates knew he had too much savvy to risk failure unless he knew the skill was still there.

The magic was still there. Mike played himself back into form with rides in the Castrol Six-Hour, Adelaide Three-Hour and at Bathurst, and many laps of Pukekohe Raceway, near Auckland.

Ten years ago, on June 3, the fairytale happened. Mike Hailwood won the opening race of the 1978 TT meeting, the TT Formula One event, on a Ducati, beating 1977 TT F1 race winner and former rival Phil Read. He averaged 108.5 mph and set a new TT F1 lap record of 110.6 mph. A new generation of motorcyclists and fans of another marque made Hailwood their hero.

In 1979 Hailwood rode the Island again. The new Ducatis weren’t as good as the winning 1978 machine. But Mike won the Senior TT (his 14th TT win and seventh in the Senior 500 class) on a 1978 model works Suzuki, in a style so relaxed he could have been riding to work. His fastest lap was over 114 mph.

Mike had by this time moved back to England and opened a motorcycle dealership in Birmingham with former world 250 champion Rod Gould.

On Sunday night, March 22, 1981, Mike Hailwood took his two children for a short drive to buy fish and chips. His car collided with the rear of a truck. Mike’s daughter Michelle was killed, Mike and son Paul were critically injured.

Mike Hailwood died the next day, 12 days short of his 41st birthday. The world lost not only a great rider (many say the greatest rider) but also an incredible bloke, according to those who knew him even briefly.

Mike Hailwood’s career was full of landmarks and epic deeds. He was born in Oxford on April 4, 1940. His father, Stan, packed him off to a boarding prep school at age six, with the idea he become a gentleman. Mike had boyhood dreams he might become an officer too, in the Royal Navy.

One year later Stan Hailwood bought his son the first of the ‘toys’ which would shape his life – a 100 cc Royal Enfield powered mini-bike. He also had a mini-car and an ex-RAF flight simulator.

The bike was Mike’s favourite. He later displayed sufficient speed around the gardens of his home to convince Stan he was a potential winner. And Stan Hailwood liked winners.

Stan the Man

Stan, a former bike and Brooklands car racer, was building his motorcycle retail business, Kings of Oxford, into one of Britain’s largest. It was a multi-site, multi-franchise business – a rarity in post-war Britain. He was a millionaire.

Mike’s next ‘career’ move proved a dead end. At 14 he decided he wanted to go to a nautical college, as preparation for entry into the navy. In a word he hated the place, and his academic record was poor.

If you read the backgrounds of great drivers and riders, you find this is a common theme. Guys who become great racers are bright, but often find schools boring.

Hailwood’s loves were sport, including boxing, music (jazz piano and later clarinet) and driving his mother’s Jaguar XK120 on weekends.

Mike left the college at 16, believing he’d decide on his future while counter­jumping at Kings of Oxford. Stan Hailwood instead used the old boy network to place young Michael in a suitably bottom of the heap job on the assembly line at Triumph in Meriden.

Mike bought an AJS 250 to ride to work and attended the odd race meeting. It was enough to tempt him to try racing.

Stan borrowed an MV 125 from a friend, Bill Webster, for Mike’s race debut on April 22, 1957 at Oulton Park. Motorcycle history records SMB Hailwood’s first result was a sixth place, just ahead of Webster, after a poor start. Webster had actually hung back to assess Mike’s potential. His verdict? Mike was world championship material.

Stan Hailwood responded by buying the MV 125 and deciding to underwrite Mike’s career until he was on his financial feet. It took 18 months.

Mike was soon winning races. The prizemoney went into buying more machines. The Hailwood Ecurie Sportive stable came to include an ex-John Surtees NSU 250, an ex-works Ducati 125 and some special Ducati twins, a Paton, a Mondial and a brace of Bill Lacey-prepared Nortons. He would often start in ten races in a weekend.

Stan Hailwood set high goals. Mike, in the book Hailwood (written with Ted Macauley), recalls an incident in 1957, not long after his dad bought the ex­Surtees NSU. Mike was favoured to win the 250 class of a meeting at Silverstone, but he fell off in the 125 race and hurt his ankle. Stan literally threw spanners at his son when he said he couldn’t start in the 250 race.

Mike was thrown out of home for two weeks. He stayed with tuner Bill Lacey until Stan discovered he had genuinely broken his ankle and tracked him down to apologise. But Mike was presumably fairly self-reliant, having spent ten of his first 16 years in boarding schools.

Some of the British racing establishment saw the teenaged Hailwood as a rich kid racer whose millionaire dad was buying him success.

Mike soon quashed this view with sheer weight of achievement. Take his Isle of Man TT debut in 1958. Hailwood contested all four solo classes. In 1958 this meant he had to learn two courses – the 61 km Mountain Course and the 17 km Clypse layout.

At the TT

Riding the ex-Surtees NSU, Mike finished third in the Lightweight (250) TT to works MV pair Tarquinio Provini and Carlo Ubbiali. The other races earned him TT replicas for seventh, 12th and 13th places, so he was the first rider to take four replicas in a week.

Hailwood two months later finished second in the Swedish 250 Grand Prix at Hedemora. He wrapped up the season by winning three of the four British solo championships.

Mike went one better in 1959, winning all four British solo titles. He made particularly good use of his ex-works Ducati 125, finishing third in the 125 TT and scoring his first world championship race win at the Ulster Grand Prix. Mike also scored world championship points (then awarded only for the top six placings) on his Mondial 250 and AJS 350, including second place in the Ulster 250 GP.

1960 produced another British solo title clean sweep. But the highlight was the Senior TT. Mike on a Norton finished third to the MVs of Surtees and John Hartle. During the race Hailwood became the second rider to lap the Isle of Man at 100 mph on a single cylinder machine. Derek Minter beat Mike to the honour of being the first by doing it earlier in the race.

Mike Hailwood was not the only “H” to arrive at the Isle of Man in the late 1950s. Honda contested the TT in 1959. In 1960 Honda hired Western riders – Australians Tom Phillis and Bob Brown, and British-born Rhodesian Jim Redman. Brown was killed in 1960, so Phillis, Redman and Swiss Luigi Taveri led the works assault on the 1961 world 125 and 250 titles.

Honda also supplied machines, via the British importer, to Hailwood and Scot Bob McIntyre, hero of the 1957 TT. Hailwood’s first meeting with both a Honda 125 twin and 250 four was the Isle of Man. He rocked the works’ teamsters on the first day’s racing by winning both the 125 and 250 events.

Two days later Hailwood had the 350 TT seemingly in the bag – leading by two minutes 20 km from home – when his AJS broke its gudgeon pin. Phil Read won on a Norton, from Hocking’s ill-running MV 350 four.

TT Week traditionally closes with the Senior TT – it’s a public holiday on the Island. Crowds were further boosted by late arrivals hoping to see a TT hat-trick.

They were given their boat fare’s worth. The ’61 Senior was a classic race. Gary Hocking was race favourite on the MV 500 four. But father and son Hailwood reckoned they’d force him to the limit with the 53 hp Lacey Norton.

Hocking opened with a 101 mph lap from a standing start, to build a 15.4 second lead over Hailwood. Flying lap speeds saw 102.6 mph for Hocking and 101.3 mph for Hailwood.

By half distance the gap was 29 seconds, and the pressure was telling on Hocking and the MV. The Rhodesian had one trip up an escape road, and the bike was giving trouble with a loose fairing and misfiring plugs.

Hocking finally retired at the pits after five of the six laps with a sticking throttle. Hailwood won by nearly two minutes from McIntyre (Manx Norton), with Tom Phillis third on the Norton Domiracer pushrod twin. Mike’s average speed was 100.6 mph, a feat unmatched on a British single until 1973. It was also the last Senior TT win on a British machine.

Hailwood later described the 1961 TT as a turning point in his career. “I took racing seriously after I won the TT!” he said.

The 1961 world 250 championship also proved a classic. Hailwood had entered the title chase at round three in France, with a second place to Tom Phillis. The TT was round four.

Howling Hondas

Mike backed his TT victory with wins in the Dutch and East German GPs, second places at Ulster and Italy, and a third place in the Belgian. He clinched the title in style, winning the Swedish GP at Kristianstad on September 17. Phillis and Redman took the FIM championship silver and bronze medals (also on Hondas).

Hailwood’s 250 world championship gave him a unique place in motorcycle racing history – the first rider to win a world title on a Japanese machine. He beat Australia’s Tom Phillis (the 1961 125 champion) to the honour by one grand prix and 28 days.

MV Agusta signed Mike Hailwood for a reported 10,000 pounds for the 1962 season, to ride 350 and 500 fours – pretty much the same ones John Surtees had ridden. Mike enjoyed the break between seasons. He took a flat in Swinging London and checked out the jazz and night clubs.

The season began as a battle between Mike and MV teammate Gary Hocking. Hailwood won the 350 TT from Hocking by just five seconds. Hocking won the 500 TT (Hailwood’s bike stopped). But that was Hocking’s last win. The Rhodesian was so upset at the death of Tom Phillis in the 350 TT, he quit motorcycle racing and went home, only to die in a car racing accident before the end of the year.

Hailwood won the next five 500 grands prix, to claim his first world title in the premier class. However, in the 350 class Honda produced a new 350 four, which after the TT won every other championship round and the first of six world titles for Jim Redman.

Back in Britain, Mike Hailwood began a tradition which won him so much fan loyalty there. If there was a race on and start money offered, Mike would be there riding British singles, like the other stars of the day. Mike would also·contest other classes at the grands prix, riding say a Bianchi 250 in Italy and an MZ 250 in East Germany.

1962 also saw the car-racing bug bite Hailwood. In 1960 MV star Surtees had established himself as Formula One front-runner material. Stirling Moss’s manager Ken Gregory gave Hailwood a try-out in the same year. Mike had a promising test cut short when he lost control in the wet and hit an embankment.

Token tintops

Two years later Mike paid 1700 pounds for his own Brabham Formula Junior to find out if he would be any good at the sport. And all this while racing for the world’s longest established 500 bike team.

Mike’s first race saw him finish fifth, in a race won by Great Train Robber Roy James. Hailwood then won his next four starts and decided he was ready for bigger things – Formula One!

Within a year Mike had become a partner in a team and had made his world car championship debut in the 1963 British GP. In May 1964 he scored his first car world championship point at Monaco in a Lotus-BRM. Mike drove a full season in 1964, but after one drive in 1965 he once more concentrated on motorcycles.

That Hailwood was able to combine bike and car racing for two and a half seasons is not to suggest he always had it all his own way on the MVs. Mike and MV faced a serious challenge in the 1963 world 500 championship. Former champion Geoff Duke had formed a team and brought the 1957 Gileras out of mothballs.

Mike found the difference between the Gilera and MV 500 four was much as Surtees had found in 1957. Six years on, the Gilera was still a smaller, lighter package, and a touch faster. Hailwood was also respectful of the team’s riders, Derek Minter and John Hartle.

Hailwood handicapped himself out of the early season Gilera/MV confrontation by falling off an AJS at Brands Hatch on Good Friday, 1963, and hurting his wrist. The first clash, in an international at lmola, saw Minter and Hartle both beat Hailwood. It was a defeat which really stirred the best in Mike Hailwood. Meantime, Minter injured his back in’ a crash in May at Brands Hatch, putting him out for most of the season.

First round of the championship was the TT. Hailwood arrived determined to beat Hartle and new recruit Read on the Gileras. Hartle was good. He lapped at 105.5 mph from a standing start. Hailwood responded with a first lap of 106.3 mph and carried on this initial advantage to win by a minute.

Hartle came back to win the Dutch TT at Assen, after Mike’s MV holed a piston. But from then on Hailwood won every race, all at race-record speed. He put in a particularly crushing ride in the Italian GP at Monza, to erase memories of the lmola loss. He averaged 190 km/h and lapped everybody except Australia’s Jack Findlay (Matchless) three times.

The 1963 world 350 championship was no less exciting. Hailwood on the eight-valve MV made Redman earn the title on the 16-valve Honda four. In the East German 350 GP, for example, his winning average speed was just one km/h slower than his 500 average, because he’d spent the race duelling with the Hondas of Taveri and Redman.

The Monza ’63 defeat was the final nail for the Gilera’s 500 GP return. Their withdrawal meant the 1964 world 500 championship would be Mike and MV versus the privateers.

Mike in 1964 took his third successive crown, winning the seven rounds he contested. His victories included the first United States Grand Prix, at Daytona. Mike on the same day set a new world one-hour speed record of 232 km/h (144 mph) on the Daytona tri-oval. Australia’s Jack Ahearn was championship runner-up and still wears the championship silver medal around his neck.

There was new activity on two levels at MV’s Gallarate headquarters over the winter of 1964-65.

First, MV owner Count Dominico Agusta signed Giacomo Agostini as a second rider for the 1965 team. The Count had always wanted an Italian champion. The former 250 Morini hotshoe from Bergamo had the credentials.

Italian stallion

Count Agusta soon put Hailwood off-side by asking him to let Agostini win the Italian championship rounds at Riccione and San Remo. In the end the Count didn’t have to ask. Hailwood had machine troubles in both races, but not before he’d realised Agostini was a threat who would not go away.

Second, the MV engineers produced a new three-cylinder 12-valve 350, to replace the wide, overweight eight-valve four, whose design could be traced back to the early 1950s.

Hailwood and Agostini went on to win all nine 500 title rounds they entered – Mike won eight and Ago won in Finland – to finish one-two in the championship.

Hailwood’s 500 IOM TT was particularly meritorious. Mike was leading after three laps in the rain when he crashed on an oil slick at 130 km/h at Sarah’s Cottage. He slid to a halt right at Agostini’s feet – his teammate had crashed moments earlier.

Mike picked up the MV, kicked the handlebars ‘straight’ and tried to unflatten the exhaust megaphones, started the bike the wrong way down the course and pressed on. Back at the pits he had the broken windscreen removed and a few basic repairs carried out.

One lap later he was back in the pits for 75 seconds for attention to a sticking throttle slide. But Hailwood pressed on to win at 91 mph, the slowest Senior TT winning speed since 1954. He was that determined.

Honda’s Jim Redman again won the 350 title, with Agostini second and Hailwood third. But the new MV triple showed its potential. Agostini won the first GP of the season and Hailwood set fastest lap in the 350 TT. The MV pair between them won the final three rounds of the championship, including the Japanese GP at Honda’s Suzuka circuit.

At the Finnish GP, Age’s winning average on the 350 triple was faster than Hailwood’s winning average on the old 500 four. MV took note and soon realised they could “stretch” the 350 to more than 420 cm3, to make it competitive in the premier class.

Mike Hailwood at the end of 1965 signed probably the biggest contract in motorcycling to that time – 40,000 pounds to join Honda. He would ride the 250, 350 and a new 500 Honda. Mike later wrote he didn’t realise what he was letting himself in for with the 500 four.

One reason given for Mike’s switch was he had seen the 250 dices between Honda’s Jim Redman and Yamaha’s Phil Read become almost the main event in a day’s grand prix racing. He wanted to join in on the new Honda 250 six.

Mike Hailwood and the Honda sixes became one of racing’s great partnerships. Hailwood dominated the 1966 250 world championship season and scored more victories than any other rider in the highly competitive 1967 250 season, when Hailwood and Ralph Bryans on Honda sixes battled toe-to-toe with Phil Read and Bill Ivy on Yamaha two-stroke V fours.

Mike also won back-to-back 350 titles with a 297 cc Honda six, beating Agostini’s MV triple. In many ways the 297 was his favourite bike, particularly for classic road circuits such as the TT.

The Honda 500 four was something else. Despite the lessons of the smaller classes, Honda apparently decided it could win the 500 crown with brute power .

Suspension tuning

The 500 four is perhaps summed up by the classic and true story of a Hailwood test session in Japan. Mike stopped the bike and asked a mechanic to remove the rear suspension units.

The units were removed and handed over. Mike then threw them into a lake. Nobody but Mike Hailwood could have done it and stayed with Honda.

Honda, having decided it wanted to win the 500 title, made life doubly tough by initially putting the most effort into team captain Jim Redman’s 500. The points Redman gained early in the season were wasted when he crashed and broke his arm at the fourth round in Belgium.

Hailwood won at the Isle of Man, Czechoslovakia and Belfast. If he could win the final round at Monza he would retain his 500 crown …

Agostini meantime had never finished outside the first two places on the MV 420 and later 485 cc triple.

When Hailwood’s Honda broke down at Monza, Agostini raced on to his third race victory of the season and the world 500 championship. An Italian had finally won the 500 title on an MV.

1967 promised more of the same. Honda developed 500 four engines giving up to 85 kW. And Britain’s best frame builders and tube makers tried to make the bike rideable! Mike freely admitted the bike frightened him silly, but he still tried to win with it.

Hailwood and Agostini each won five races in a titanic ten-race 500 championship. Mike’s wins included the Senior TT (the last part of a 1967 winning TT treble). That was the race where Hailwood set a lap record which stood for eight years, at 108.77 mph. Agostini pressed him hard until the MV’s chain broke.

The championship could not have been closer. Riders could only count their best six results in the final points in 1967. Both had 46 points from five wins and a second. But Agostini was awarded the title because he had three second placings to Hailwood’s two.

Mike again had the chance to claim the 500 title at Monza, if the Honda could stay together. But in an ending straight out of Hollywood, the Honda twisted its crankshaft when he was leading by 17 seconds with two laps to go. Ago won the race by 13 seconds.

Australian privateer Eric Hinton had an on-track view of some of Hailwood’s Honda rides.

“Mike was a relaxed guy, he had the perfect temperament for a motorcycle racer. He was a great motorbike rider. Jim Redman told us Mike would use all the road in places on a fast circuit like Spa-Francorchamps where we only used parts of it,” Hinton said.

“That Honda 500 four was a camel! Honda had two engines for it – one with 90 horsepower and one with 115,” he said.

Mike Hailwood’s last world motorcycle road-racing championship appearance was the Canadian GP at Mosport Park on September 30, 1967. He won the 250 and 500 classes, to give him a career total of 77 victories. Hailwood’s victories included 37 in the 500 class, a tally bettered only by Agostini in his 12 years in the class.

What a job!

Honda’s offer of paying Mike not to contest the 1968 world championship for another make left him in a well-paid limbo. He was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to the sport in 1968.

Mike had works motorcycle offers after 1968, but decided again to go car racing. Mike joined John Surtees, driving Formula 5000 cars. It was a class of racing Mike liked, because the F5000 drivers had the same kind of group enjoyment and interaction as his former bike racing mates. He found the Formula One regulars too insular.

Hailwood’s major motorcycle appearance during his general hibernation of 1968-77 was the 1971 Daytona 200. Mike was leading after 15 laps when his works BSA triple broke down.

Hailwood’s involvement with Team Surtees saw him back in Formula One by the end of 1971. The following year he won the European Formula Two championship and scored his highest ever placing in a car grand prix – second in the Italian GP at Monza.

Asked in 1983 what he thought of Hailwood, John Surtees replied “a super guy”.

In March 1973 at Kyalami, Hailwood dived into the flames to rescue Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni from his burning BRM. Mike later received the George Medal, Britain’s highest award for civilian bravery.

Mike left Team Surtees for McLaren in 1974. He was now one of the world’s top ten drivers. But it all went wrong in the German GP at Nurburgring – his 50th grand prix appearance.

Mike had a big moment during practice when his car turned hard right into an armco fence, due to a suspected suspension breakage.

Worse occurred in the race. He was running fifth when his car landed off-line after a jump and piled head-on into the armco. Mike sustained an ankle injury which permanently restricted movement of his right foot. He also broke his shin and suffered a complicated knee fracture. The initial thinking was Mike would be sidelined for three months. But in fact his car racing days were over.

A recent book, The Grand Prix Drivers, describes Mike Hailwood as “a sunny and uninhibited character whose innate brilliance never got the chance to shine through on four wheels”.

The reason it didn’t shine through was Hailwood had missed out on an apprenticeship in cars – learning early about the effects of suspension settings and the like. When he came to cars some people saw him as a blow-in and wouldn’t help him in these areas. Like any good motorcycle racer, Mike had the talent and finesse in vehicle control to be very good in cars. What he needed was experience.

On his retirement, Mike and wife Pauline moved to Auckland in New Zealand where he opened a marine business. It was a pleasant life, but not a pace Mike was used to. Mike could still ride, despite the restricted movement in his right foot. He began accepting invitations to compete in historic meetings. Pauline Hailwood could see Mike regaining his keenness for bike racing.

Ducati Six-Hour

Mike raced a Norton at Bathurst in 1977. He finished second in the Historic Race to Jim Scaysbrook (Matchless). Hailwood and Scaysbrook struck up a friendship which was to see them team up in that year’s Castrol Six-Hour on a 750 Ducati.

Sometime between Easter and the start of July 1977, Mike decided on his ‘back to the TT’ idea. He asked Ted Macauley to do the arranging and said his plan was subject to how he felt in the Six-Hour.

The ‘back to the TT’ campaign was well planned. Mike refreshed his memory of the course with a lap during practice for the Manx Grand Prix in September 1977, under the cover that he was helping make a film on the Isle of Man.

One month later Hailwood showed he’d lost none of his class when he and Scaysbrook finished sixth outright and second in the 750 class in the ’77 Castrol Six-Hour.

Mike practised over the southern summer at Pukekohe Raceway. He contested the Adelaide Three-Hour, again with Scaysbrook on the Ducati, then rode a misfiring Yamaha TZ750 to ninth place in the ’78 Australian Unlimited Grand Prix at Bathurst. In the middle of this lead-up period, Mike’s father Stan died in France after a long illness.

Hailwood completed his TT preparations in Europe. His mounts for the TT were a Formula One Ducati and three Yamahas – a 250, an ex-works 500 and a 750. Scaysbrook contested the meeting on a second TT F1 Ducati.

The ’78 Ducati was a gem. Mike opened TT Week with the result everybody wanted – victory in the TT Formula One Race. He averaged 108.5 mph and won by two minutes, setting a new class lap record of 110.6 mph. To add icing, Hailwood had passed 1977 TT F1 race winner Phil Read before Read’s Honda quit.

The Yamaha section of the campaign was not as happy. Mike logged just one finish, a 12th in the 250TT, from three starts. Mike eased the disappointment by winning the Post-TT Formula One race at Mallory Park, a real scratcher’s track.

Hailwood and Scaysbrook teamed for a second Castrol Six-Hour effort in October 1978, but this effort turned into a test of everybody’s good humour. Mike and reserve rider Stu Avant both crashed during practice. The team went into the race with ten laps practice. Whereupon Jim took his turn to crash, sidelining the bike.

While researching this story, I rang Jim Scaysbrook for some comments. He said the stories came flooding back to him.

“Mike Hailwood was my boyhood hero, but I met him almost on the rebound. I’ve never met a sportsman so proficient at what he did and yet so relaxed in doing it as Mike. He was so much in control of himself,” Scaysbrook said.

“Not only was Mike the greatest bike rider, he was one of the great human beings. He was disarmingly frank and human. He taught me how not to take myself too seriously.

“During that first Six-Hour, Mike had his eyes on the TT comeback. He was pretty relaxed on the outside, but still serious. The whole exercise had to prove something to him before he’d expose himself on the world stage,” Jim said.

Crash tactics

Scaysbrook went on to recount a story from the ill-fated 1978 Six Hour attempt.

“Mike and Stu both crashed the bike during practice week. I went out for qualifying, the bike having covered ten laps in practice and myself no laps, and it broke the big-end.

“We looked around and asked ourselves what do we do now? The answer was go to the beach while the guys attempted to repair the bike.

“Ten miles from the track, Mike remembered he had the keys to a Ducati someone in the Ducati Owners’ Club had loaned us. Mike didn’t want the guy to be stranded, so he stopped the car, and jumped out to flag down a motorcyclist heading the other way.

“A guy pulled up on a BMW. You can imagine, you’re riding out to Amaroo Park, and Mike Hailwood flags you down, gives you a pit pass and asks you to take some keys to someone in the pits. You’d take them to Antarctica if he asked you,” Scaysbrook said.

Former international sidecar racer Peter Campbell was billeted next to Hailwood for the 1979 Isle of Man TT. “We were welding up our frame after a practice session and Mike came by. I said something like ‘bring us a six-pack Baldie’ and he did!” Campbell said.

“Mike was a great bloke who just liked to have a good time. A few nights later he put me in a taxi at 5 am after a presentation night.

“Mike was a great rider. At his peak he’d ride a Norton or AJS and still beat them all. In 1979, he lapped the Island at 114 mph. He went past our digs, on Bray Hill, looking like he was riding to work!

“His attitude was ‘give me a pair of wheels and I’ll ride it’. Mike was like Ron Toombs. You couldn’t find anybody who’d say anything against him,” Campbell said.

Mike Hailwood finished his TT career in 1979. His new supposed ‘works’ Ducati was a disappointment in practice and began to fall to bits in the TT F1 race. Mike nursed it home in fifth place.

His other mount was a 1978 model works Suzuki. Mike rode it to victory in the Senior TT at an average of 111.7 mph, with a new 500 lap record of 114 mph.

Four days later, Mike missed victory by just 3.6 seconds in his swansong race, the 1000 cm3 Classic TT. Scot Alex George won on a works Honda 1000 four-stroke.

Australian grand prix mechanic Dave Cullen helped prepare the Suzuki. He perhaps summed up Mike Hailwood when I asked him what it was like to work for the Great Man.

“Mike was so laid back, he wouldn’t have us go to the trouble of moving the seat so he’d be more comfortable on the bike,” Cullen said.

By Don Cox, Two Wheels, August 1988

Circus Life is Don’s account of the exploits of a bunch of young Australian motorcycle racers who followed the GP circuit as privateers through Europe in the 1950s. It’s beautifully written, forensically researched and accompanied by some amazing photographs. Don discusses Circus Life with Jay Leno on Jay Leno’s Garage here, and you can order a copy of Circus Life here.

Australian actor Eric Bana will play Mike Hailwood in Mike the Bike, a movie about his return to the TT in 1978 and his epic win on the Ducati. Meanwhile watch this short doco on the real event here