AT LUNCH WITH...
The most enthusiastic man in motorcycling? Maybe – he was a top TT rider for 15 years, rode trials for Honda, and at 65 came third in the Manx GP...
A socially-distanced snack with top trials and TT man Nick Jefferies
Nick Jefferies talks exactly how he’s lived his life – at full throttle, bouncing from one passion to the next like a hugely entertaining pinball. An anecdote about winning the Manx Twoday trial flips into a tale of being Joey’s TT team-mate on factory Hondas which pings into a brief history of Scott motorcycles (three of which live in Nick’s shed). Like many of Nick’s TT rivals, I’m struggling to keep up.
“I just couldn’t dedicate myself to one thing,” he says, sitting in his conservatory as we enjoy a socially-distanced sandwich. “There was work at Allan Jefferies [the dealership started by his father], women and then marriage and then kids, and trials and house building and racing... I’ve always had so much on and have never managed to dedicate myself to one thing. It’s a weakness. I look back and think I should have committed to trials riding – like the Rathmells and Lampkins did. I had the ability but not the dedication.”
This gloriously enthusiastic approach to life does make for extraordinary stories, though. Like the time he was fired from the factory Honda trials team for secretly racing at the Manx GP. “After I led the Scottish Six-day in 1974, Sammy Miller signed me up to ride a Honda in July 1975. I said: ‘I’m racing at the Skerries 100 this weekend,’ and he said he didn’t want me racing bikes. I told him I had set my heart on doing two things: the Skerries 100 and the Manx GP. He said: ‘You do those and nothing else’.
“Honda paid me very well and I got their first world championship points on that bike and won the Manx Twoday trial, so I did OK. But I got back from Skerries covered in scars and limping like mad, because I’d been knocked off after I crossed the finishing line. Then I went and did the Manx and Sammy said: ‘It’s over – no more racing’.
“So I dedicated myself to trials and came sixth in the world championship. I was going places. But stupidly, I couldn’t resist the temptation of racing. I told Sammy I was doing the Manx Two-day trial, but didn’t mention that I was racing [the Manx GP] as well. I got away with it that year. But the following year I did it again and came third and he found out and sacked me. If I hadn’t got on the rostrum I might have got away with it.”
Despite Nick’s tales ricocheting between sports and across decades, it’s never long before the Isle of Man crops up. Ever since his dad plonked him on the tank of Les Graham’s MV Agusta, aged one, at the 1953 TT, Nick has always been drawn to the place. “I was an idiot at school and instead of learning about Hastings and the Magna Carta, I could recite every TT podium since 1907. I was such a racing geek – ask me who came first second and third in, oh, the 1939 Senior, and I could rattle them off. I can do most of them now – Jock West was second and Georg Meier won on the supercharged BMW. I can’t remember who was third, was it Freddie Frith?” Yes it was.
Nick’s memory for Tt-related detail is phenomenal. There are so many TT facts in that brain, it sometimes seems a struggle to stop them just leaking out. “Who was the second man to lap at 100mph round the TT?” he suddenly asks, mid-anecdote. “Everyone thinks it was John Surtees, but it was John Hartle, 1958 Senior, lap two.”
I suggest that if there had been an O-level on the TT, he would have fared better at school. “Oh, no that’s definitely not true. In my mock A-level geography exam, one question was a map of the Isle of Man and I just waffled on about the terrain of the TT course and didn’t answer any of the questions.”
The spur to race on the Island came in 1973. “I did the
Manx Two-day trial [he came third behind Rathmell and Lampkin] and afterwards I was watching the racing at the Gooseneck. There was one lad who was going so slowly he was leant the other way, as my dad would have said. I thought: ‘I could get a road bike round there faster than that’. There and then I decided I had to come and ride the Isle of Man. I wasn’t so bothered about racing, I just wanted to ride round.”
But two weeks later, on September 16, 1973, Nick’s racing plans were decimated after his brother Tony – who’d won three TTS – crashed at Mallory Park and was paralysed. But even so, by the following year Nick had bought a Yamaha TD2B and did his first race at Elvington in March 1974, purely so he could race at the Manx GP.
The family reaction to Nick’s actions was, understandably, anything but positive. “Tony was still in hospital and I was buying a race bike – it didn’t go down well. But I said I had to do it. I was 23 and though the thought of crashing was always in my mind, I just had to do it.”
And he was good at it. “I had lots of wins and podiums straight away. It came naturally to me. I got my national licence and the sponsor of Ian Martin [Guy’s dad] asked if I wanted to ride with Ian at the TT in the production race.
“So I went to the TT in 1975. The first time out, Ian crashed and broke his back and wrote the bike off. I’d ridden over on a Norton Commando, so they stripped my bike, put their engine in it and I got out on Thursday night. But the tyres hadn’t been pumped up, so I did my first TT lap with 19psi in the front tyre. In the end we finished 45th.”
And so began one of the most frenzied years of an almost unrelentingly frenzied life. “In May 1975 I did the Scottish Six-day for Yamaha and led it, and was lying fourth when it holed a piston. I came back and got ready to leave for Czechoslovakia for the European Two-day Championship enduro on a works Jawa, where I got a gold medal. I came straight back and got ready to ride in the TT. I was riding in the ISDT in the British team that year, too.”
Nick’s hectic 1975 isn’t quite so surprising once you learn about his upbringing, where all the foundations for his passions were laid. Key to them all was his father, Allan, who won six ISDT gold medals, came second to Geoff Duke in the 1949 Senior Clubmans TT and was the last person to win the Scott Trial on a Scott. He also transformed the garage his father Joe (Nick’s grandad) started into Allan Jefferies Motorcycles, which is now a major BMW bike dealership. Allan supplied the young Nick with plentiful amounts of inspiration, knowledge and bikes. “I learnt to ride in a quarry out the back of the shop. I was crying my eyes out because my brother wouldn’t let me have a go on his BSA Dandy, so he eventually relented to shut me up, expecting me to crash it and leave him alone, but I loved it.
“By nine I was riding an ex-white Helmets side-valve Triumph TRW that we’d got in part exchange. I couldn’t start it or touch the floor, but I could ride it.” At that time Colin Appleyard, who later went on to be a successful motorcycle dealer, worked at the Jefferies’ dealership and raced sidecars. “I badgered Colin to take me with him to sidecar races,” says Nick. “There was no room in the van, so I would lie on the sidecar next to the primary chain. We went all over the country like that. ”
True to form, he was doing other stuff, too. “There’s a picture of me in 1964 passengering my dad on his 1932 Scott in the Veterans Reunion Trial, held on the course of the Scott Trial. Dad was very proud of all this, then suddenly when I was 13 I switched to football. I don’t know why, but I didn’t touch bikes for about two years.
“Then, when I was nearly 16, I regained interest, and my Christmas present for 1967 was the actual bike that Gordon Farley competed on, a Triumph factory Cub – they’d closed the competition shop and dad managed to get it.”
“I did my first trial on the Cub on April 7, 1968, and finished third novice. My fourth trial was a national, which I managed to finish, and my 10th was the Manx Two-day – I came 75th out of 250.” Nick also qualified as an expert, which in Yorkshire is going some. “There’s not much else to do round here,” explains Nick, pointing out of the window, “apart from cricket and sheltering behind a wall in the rain.” As Nick’s trials career progressed, his dad slowly moved into the background, keenly aware that times had changed
‘MY 1967 CHRISTMAS PRESENT WAS A TRIUMPH FACTORY CUB – DAD GOT IT AFTER THEY CLOSED THE COMPETITION SHOP
since his day. “My dad was my inspiration and my idol, but I didn’t get much input from him. He let me get on with it – don’t forget he was an old man by the time my trials career was taking off.”
Allan died in 1978, so although he saw Nick achieve great things on a trials bike, he missed his TT successes. In 1983 Nick finally won the Manx GP and got his TT career rolling the following year with a string of top 10 finishes – including one on a BMW K100RS in the Production TT. “Then in 1987 I rode a VFR750 that was in the showroom window the week before. I put 100 miles on it and took it to the Island. I did a 111mph lap and got a sixth.”
Honda sat up and took notice, and in 1988 Nick hit the big time, riding alongside Joey Dunlop, Steve Hislop and Roger Burnett on the new RC30. In this elevated company Nick wasn’t sure of himself, and was left behind by Joey in the first race. “Ron Grant was my spannerman and he made me believe in myself. He convinced me I could keep up with Joey and when he passed me in the Senior race I followed him all the way over the Mountain and got this euphoric feeling because he wasn’t pulling away.
“In fact I braked later than him for Mountain Box, then the same thing happened at Brandywell and I could have passed him at Windy Corner. I kept thinking: ‘I’m not going to re-pass him, that would be just taking the p*ss’.” It was an amazing ride – Joey won, and Nick would have come second but his bike seized because the wrong oil was used.
Over the next few years, Nick was at the TT sharp end, breaking the Production TT lap record in 1989 and finishing second and third in the Senior and F1. In 1990 he got another second in the F1 and in 1992 he finished fourth in four TTS: “In the Senior that year I was the first Honda home, but it
went largely unnoticed because of the Hislop [Norton] and Fogarty [Yamaha] battle at the front [Robert Dunlop was third on another Norton]. Joey retired because he had double vision [a celebration the night before was the rumoured culprit] – and Phillip [Mccallen] retired with a holed radiator.”
Finally, in 1993, Nick won a TT – the F1. Riding a factory RC30 (which he owns), he beat Philip Mccallen into second place, with Steve Ward in third. The win seemed like a just reward for years spent at the front, but Honda were less impressed – they sacked him in 1994.
“There were three RC45S allocated for the 1994 season. Joey got one, obviously, Hislop got one for short circuits, and Phillip Mccallen got the other, partly because he was fast and partly because he brought a lot of money with him. So I was sacked. I felt a bit hard done by – I was a Honda dealer, too – but I could understand the decision.”
Then his old mate and ex-mechanic Ron Grant intervened. “Ron said: ‘I can get you the Britten [the home-made V-twin built by Kiwi genius John Britten]’. It was meant to be fantastically quick, but it wasn’t really – it was underdeveloped.
“I’m very proud to have ridden it, but every time I did, it failed in some way. And of course it was a tragic year because Mark Farmer died on it [in practice at Black Dub]. I’m convinced the reason he crashed was cold tyres. Michelin decided that because the bike was so fast, it needed hard compound tyres – but that meant they never heated up. Mark tried to follow Steve Hislop, the tyres weren’t hot enough and he crashed. Terrible. I liked Mark and wish we could have been team-mates for longer.”
There’s a pause – not a common occurrence when Nick’s talking about the TT – before he gathers himself. “The Britten’s big problem was it had too-high compression for the size of radiator – it was just building up heat and couldn’t get rid of it. But it was lovely to ride. You could pick the front wheel up at Ballacraine and put it down for Ballaspur [300m down the road].”
Nick continued racing at the TT for another nine years, coming second in both the 1995 Junior and 1996 F1, and scoring a dozen top 10 finishes. But when his superstar nephew David was killed at the TT in 2003, Nick couldn’t carry on racing. He’d had enough. “David was a magician on a bike. He was just amazing. From the age of 16 I had remained focused on bikes, but when DJ lost his life I did one more race and took up golf instead.”
We’ve finished our sarnies and I’m aware Nick has work to do – he buys and sells motorcycles – but I have to ask about his return to racing, as I seem to remember him riding an MV at Goodwood. “Yes, I was tempted back by that in 2012 and it gave me the taste. Soon after, they launched the Classic TT and I fancied that, so I bought an RC30 and came 12th – an OK result. Then I bought an ER-6 Kawasaki and finished third in the Manx, aged 65. That was 40 years after my first rostrum – there can’t be many people who’ve done that. I love the Manx, but I thought: ‘That’ll do’. I was proud of myself and felt like I’d finally got it out of my system. I stick to classic trials on my Bantam these days...”
‘I WAS THIRD IN THE MANX, AGED 65 – 40 YEARS AFTER MY FIRST ROSTRUM’