Remembering Fritz Scheidegger
A bit more than 55 years after the fateful accident of the reigning double world champion Fritz Scheidegger (1965, 1966), his then racing sidecar outfit with BMW Rennsport engine (“RS”, type 253) was back on the race track at Mallory Park, UK, in July 2022 as part of the “Festival of 1000 Bikes” of the “Vintage and Classic Motor Cycle Club” (VMCC).
From around the mid-1950s, in the “golden years of motorsport”, the season began here at Easter and ended in autumn. In April there was the “Race of the Year” for sidecar teams. On the way back from the “Tourist Trophy” on the Isle of Man in June (World Championship round until 1976), riders often met here again for the so-called “Post-TT” races. While the bonuses at the TT were rather meagre, but the travel costs were high simply because of the distance, races like the one in Mallory offered a good opportunity to fill up the travel fund with comparatively lavish starting and prize money. 60,000 to 70,000 paying spectators in the middle of the countryside between cornfields were not uncommon. Scheidegger rode at least ten races at Mallory between 1961 and 1967. The otherwise almost faultless Swiss Scheidegger, who had broken the long line of German sidecar world champions for the first time since 1954, had a fatal accident in the “Sidecar Race of the Year” at this race at Easter
1967 and his co-driver John Robinson was seriously injured.
Scheidegger, born in Switzerland in 1930, had been racing sidecars with BMW RS engines since 1957. At first, Horst Burkhardt was his co-driver, then, from 1962, the Englishman John Robinson. As early as 1959, Scheidegger was third in the
World Championship, a year later he was second. From then on, he was the constant pursuer of Max Deubel and Emil Hoerner: WRC second in 1961 and 1964, WRC third in 1962 and 1963. While DeubelHoerner continued to race with a “sitter” and the sidecar on the right hand side, Scheidegger-Robinson consistently relied on the flatter design of the “kneeler” with the sidecar on the left hand side. In 1965, he and Robinson became world champions with four GP victories and three second places. In the 1966 season, they topped everything so far by
winning all five World Championship races (Hockenheim, Clermont-Ferrand, Assen, SpaFrancorchamps and the TT). Scheidegger earned his money both by racing and with a workshop complete with petrol station and café. His main business was repairing cars of US makes.
Following Scheidegger’s death, the outfit came to Germany in 1968, was repaired by Dieter Busch and raced by Heinz Luthringshauser for several years, while the engine, gearbox, etc. passed into other hands. Siegfried Schauzu won his second TT with this engine in 1968. At that time, Luthringshauser was one of the few sidecar riders on the
European mainland with a left-hand sidecar because of his prosthesis on his left leg. Afterwards, the outfit went to a private collection in Switzerland. It was no longer roadworthy and was only intended to serve as an exhibition piece. In the last two years, it was restored in Germany to now return to the scene of the sad events in the home of the new owner, who had enthusiastically followed the motorbike races, especially in Mallory, as a youth.
After many endless efforts by those involved in the project to bring the outfit back to a race-ready condition as close as possible to its 1967 state, the premiere was an outstanding success, to the general enthusiasm of the knowledgeable and interested public and the team in Mallory. The outfit is very narrow and light, even by the standards of the time. It reacts to the slightest steering movement, as does the desmodromic control of the carburettors to the slightest turn of the throttle hand. For a next time on such tracks or occasions, however, smaller carburettors (instead of the 38 Dell Ortos) as well as a shorter rear wheel ratio would make sense in order to spare the clutch. Adjustments are still being made to the fairing. Here, as with the position of the knee pads, it depends very much on the height of the rider. Scheidegger was 186 cm tall and slim. In the course of the restoration, the memorial stone for Scheidegger in Langenthal/CH was also cleaned of moss and lichen and a memorial plaque was attached.
At Mallory, the owner of the outfit said, “In my youth, I followed the sidecar races in Mallory with particular enthusiasm. So many special events are associated with this outfit. Now I am proud to have such an outfit in my collection. Thank you very much to everyone who helped to bring the outfit to Mallory on the track!”