More on Geoff Perry
Ross Charlton’s letter about Geoff Perry in OBA72 was much appreciated. Many of us have a personal `top three’ riders they saw in action (as opposed to riders they read about, that’s a separate list). Mine is, in alphabetical order, Hansford, Hennen and Perry. Geoff Perry raced in Australia just twice to the best of my knowledge; the Trans-Tasman Match races at Amaroo Park and the Agostini meeting at Oran Park. I’m still not sure I wasn’t hallucinating when Geoff went down the outside of three of our best TZ350 riders while braking into Amaroo’s hairpin – astonishing. Of course, he was on a very good bike, the NZ-developed Steve Roberts-framed 500 Suzuki. On the same bike he bested all the Aussies at Oran, only Agostini finished in front of him. I vividly recall Geoff’s unusual line through and out of Energol Bend, sticking to the absolute inside to shorten the corner and maintaining that trajectory along the straight, which contrasted with Agostini’s classic open line that took him near the outside fence on the exit. Both tracks were new to Geoff, surely he was on the ‚
cusp of becoming a world star until cruelly and ironically taken in an airline crash. Geoff’s Amaroo overtaking move lives in my memory alongside Pat Hennen’s pass of Ron Toombs at Oran Park’s flip-flop in a Pan Pacific race and Gregg’s move on Warren Willing at Energol to win a big scrap at Oran that also involved another Kiwi ace, John Woodley. Although Geoff Perry is synonymous with Suzuki, his early results were achieved on a TSS Bultaco, as the photo above shows from 1968. - Ed