John Taylor’s foresight
Your article last issue on the life and times of Gregg Hansford brought memories of my one and only personal encounter with one of the nation’s greatest motorcycle riders. In 1967 the Kedron Motorcycle club, of which I was a member, began building a new short circuit track on land it owned at Kingston, on Brisbane’s then southern outskirts. Long-serving KMCC clubman Owen Crute designed the track – with banking on the sweepers at either end of the circuit. As work continued Owen convinced the club to hold its club championships on the new track as a “try out” of the design. John Taylor, the much-involved manager of Brisk Sales, at that time the local Yamaha dealership, prevailed on KMCC to allow a 15-year-old youngster to compete, sans ACU licence and at the risk of official censure. Gregg turned up on the day armed with a DT250 tweaked a little by John Taylor’s crew. I lined up alongside him on a Stan Wilmott 500 AJS in the first race of the day. The flag dropped and that was the last time I saw him or the Yamaha until after the chequered flag. As I recall he cleaned up every event on the 250 – but didn’t make it into the club record books as a winner because of the aforementioned age difficulties. In 1974 I was also privileged to witness first-hand the epic duel at Bathurst between Gregg and Warren Willing on the 750s. The sight of the two bikes “jumping” together over the Conrod Straight humps at more than 160 mph is a vision that remains crystal clear in my mind. Equally, along with everyone else in the sport, I was shocked at his death in that car accident. John Taylor maintained his support for Gregg, and motorcycle sport in Queensland, for many years and encouraged many young, talented riders into the sport. Casino, NSW, production bike champion Tommy Gibson, another of his early protégés.
Terry Gallaway Sydney, NSW