Barry Sheene

Motorcycle racer famed as much for his crashes as his wins

Barry Stephen Frank Sheene, motorcycle racer: born London 11 September 1950; MBE 1978; married 1984 Stephanie McLean (née Harrison; one son, one daughter); died Gold Coast, Queensland 10 March 2003.

Barry Sheene was one of only a handful of British motorcycle racers to become a household name to the public at large. Whether winning world titles, crashing (and recuperating) spectacularly, hosting television shows or splashing on men's deodorants, "Bazza" was a master at getting attention. Indeed, so far as newspaper front pages were concerned, he was famed almost as much for his X-rays as for his exploits on the race track.

When Iris Sheene presented her husband Frank – known as "Franco" – with a son in 1950, almost his first act was to phone a friend to say that the winner of the 1970 Isle of Man TT races had just been born. In fact the young Sheene's TT career was brief and inglorious, but he was to make a far wider mark on motorcycling's world stage.

A genuine cockney – he was born in Holborn just within earshot of Bow Bells – Sheene was introduced to motorcycle race paddocks almost as soon as he could walk: both his father and uncle Arthur were able amateur racers. By five, he was tearing around on a mini-bike built from scratch by his father, who was a maintenance man at the nearby Royal College of Surgeons. An utter natural, he mastered this and later machines quickly before an inevitable progression into motorcycle racing at the age of 17.

Perhaps fittingly, Sheene's very first race, at Brands Hatch in Kent, ended in a crash when his 125cc Bultaco seized. Undaunted, a few minutes later he clambered on to a 250cc Bultaco and came in third. One week later he recorded his first win. An 11-plus failure and virtual drop-out at secondary school with an aversion to authority figures, perhaps he saw this as a way out of his dead-end job.

For 1969 Franco and son planned a full season of racing. Even in those early years the young Sheene was well aware of the power of publicity. He was already sporting the "Donald Duck" helmet design that he was to make famous – chosen precisely because it would make people take notice. Later he'd drill a hole in the chin piece so he could smoke on the grid. A raw rookie, he finished the season runner-up in the 125cc British Championship. A year later he won the same title, also placing third in the 250cc series.

During 1970 Sheene heard that Stuart Graham's ex-works twin-cylinder 125cc Suzuki was for sale, and borrowed £2,000 to make it his. Although this was a staggering sum for a six-year-old machine, it would launch Sheene's international reputation. In a one-off grand prix ride in Spain he almost beat the local hero Angel Nieto, 13 times a world champion.

Racing the same machine in a full world championship campaign in 1971 Sheene scored his first grand prix win at Spa-Francorchamps in the Belgian Ardennes, a fearsome road circuit at which he would usually excel. Two more wins saw him leading the championship going into the final round at Jarama, but Sheene was not in good shape. Riding with a rib broken a week earlier in a crash at Mallory Park in Leicestershire, he again lost out as Nieto won race and championship. In the same year Sheene somehow wrapped his lanky frame around a tiny 50cc Kriedler to win in that class as well.

Still, number two in the world isn't bad. But Sheene knew better than to expect fanfares on his return home. As he said some years later, in the early Seventies motorcycle sport "was still a bit non-U in those days in the eyes of the daily papers". It would be Sheene, practically single-handed, who would change all that.

After a disappointing and injury-prone year contracted to Yamaha, Sheene was signed by Suzuki for 1973. At the time the Japanese factory had no machines capable of seriously contending the grand prix classes, but did have a 180mph missile for the world Formula 750 series. Christened the "flexi-flier" a year earlier due to its puny chassis, the GT750's handling was supposedly much improved by the time Sheene stepped aboard. Although he always maintained that he got an inferior version that only worked when he housed it in a new chassis, Sheene finished the season as world champion in the F750 class. He was also voted "man of the year" by the readers of Motorcycle News.

Success brought the offer of riding for the reigning 500cc world champions, MV Agusta, but Sheene knew something they didn't: Suzuki was developing a new four-cylinder two-stroke machine for the blue riband grand prix class. The RG500 "square four" made its competitive début at the French Grand Prix in 1974, taking Sheene to a promising second place. However, the Suzuki had flattered to deceive. Poor handling, crashes and the usual development gremlins left it, and Sheene, sixth in the 500cc grand prix standings.

By now Sheene's success, ebullient personality and cheeky good looks were already bringing him to the notice of a wider audience. He had been photographed for Vogue by David Bailey, and in March 1975 was to feature in an hour-long television documentary. The plan was for a fly-on-the-wall view of racing around Florida's terrifying Daytona Speedway bowl. In the event, viewers never got so far as the actual race, for during practice the rear tyre of Sheene's 750cc Suzuki exploded at 180mph.

Television viewers only saw a split second of what followed next, for the camera ran out of film. But Mick Grant, one of Sheene's main British rivals, saw it all:

Horrendous . . . it went on for ever, he seemed to just cartwheel for miles. When I visited him in hospital he was a mess. But he was just so determined – he made an amazing recovery.

Just a few weeks later Sheene was almost back on the pace, chasing Grant around Cadwell Park race track in Lincolnshire.

A sharp negotiator, Sheene knew his worth – to race promoters, motorcycle factories and sponsors alike. No British rider before or since knew how to lever a better deal. Such single-mindedness may make champions, but not necessarily cosy relationships with fans. For all his on-screen charm, for all his legions of devoted fans, face-to-face he was often brusque and indifferent.

During the Seventies many top 750cc riders had similar crashes to Sheene's. Most hobbled off into obscurity, but Sheene knew how to make the most of the resulting publicity. Suddenly, you couldn't switch on TV or pick up a newspaper without seeing Bazza's chirpy grin, or his battered legs.

The injuries may have advanced Sheene's media career, but they set back his racing, for although he won two late-season grands prix they were only enough to earn sixth place in the world championship. He was, though, the ideal development rider: bright, brave and with an intuitive feel for a racing motorcycle, although his outspokenness sometimes sat uneasily with the formality of a Japanese factory team.

By 1976 the RG500 was the finest machine in its class, and Sheene was back at his peak. Five grands prix wins brought him a first world grand prix title, and Suzuki their first in the class, taking the manufacturer's title with 136 points to a mere 55 by the second-placed Yamaha.

A year later he was even more refreshed, thanks in part to Fabergé's Brut 33 which he was advertising on television with Henry Cooper. Even the Suzuki had a sponsor's splash of Fabergé (and retained Sheene's "lucky" number 7 rather than the champion's 1. Less conspicuous were his "lucky" blue underpants and Gary Nixon T-shirt). With six race victories, he won the championship at a canter, even sitting some races out.

What cost him the title in 1978 was the combination of a four-cylinder Yamaha every bit as good as the Suzuki, and a new breed of racer. The American Kenny Roberts brought a new level of tough, clinical perfectionism to motorcycle racing to beat Sheene narrowly in 1978, and rather more comfortably in the following two years. Sheene lost his factory Suzuki ride after that second defeat, running his own private Yamaha squad. Although he continued winning grands prix and carrying the flag for British fans, Sheene's reign was over. His last grand prix win came in 1981.

Yet his spell in the limelight was far from over. In 1978 he had the double distinction of being appointed MBE for services to motorcycle sport, and being featured on This is Your Life. He later put his cockney banter to use as co-presenter of the television show Just Amazing.

In 1982 Sheene launched his X-rays back on to the front pages when he collided with Patrick Igoa's prone 250cc machine at over 100mph during unofficial practice at Silverstone, shattering both legs and breaking an arm. Less publicised was a six-figure settlement from a circuit which had always gone out of its way to accommodate Sheene.

Much has been made of Sheene's dislike of the Isle of Man TT. In 1971 his one skirmish with the races ended with a crash at Quarter Bridge. Sheene never returned to the Isle of Man. Although his casual criticism of the event stung the TT authorities, he never saw the point of a meeting which lasted two weeks, on a circuit which took three years to learn. Allegations that a rider of such conspicuous bravery lacked the bottle for such a challenge are fatuous. Indeed, to this day he is responsible for the fastest lap ever recorded in motorcycle grands prix, 137.15mph at Spa-Francorchamps in 1977.

Far more important to Sheene was the one major success to elude him: victory in the British grands prix. The nearest he came was at Silverstone in 1979 when, after a stirring battle with his nemesis, Roberts, he lost out by less than a wheel.

Sheene finally hung up his leathers in 1984. Three years later he moved with his family to Australia, hoping that a warmer climate would be kinder to his battered limbs. Until his illness he was a regular commentator for televised motorsport in Australia, as well as occasional mentor to up-and-coming motorcycle racers. In recent years he competed successfully in classic motorcycle races.

When he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and stomach last summer, Sheene reacted with characteristic grit, returning to the UK to race a classic Norton at Goodwood. "I'm so light now, it's got to fly," he quipped to a friend. He declared that he wasn't "going to subject my body to chemotherapy" but pursue more natural remedies. Sheene would have been well aware that for 46 years his grandfather Alec bred animals for cancer research, only to see his wife die of the same disease.

Mac McDiarmid