DAVE CROXFORD AT 80
Rollicking tales of boozing and racing from the ex-british champ
In more normal times, four-time British champion Dave Croxford would be celebrating his 80th birthday this summer by riding his Triumph Explorer to Portugal, with wife Pauline on the back.
Covid-19 wiped out that plan, just like it’s wiped out many millions of other plans. Crox isn’t too bothered, but then he’s never been too bothered about anything.
“Now I’ve just got to stay fit until I can go away next year,” he says. “It keeps me motivated, doesn’t it? Years ago I promised myself: ‘Dave, by the time you’re 70 you’re still going to be riding’. Then it was: ‘Dave, by the time you’re 80 you’re still going to be riding’. I keep fit, I can still get into in my racing leathers and me and Pauline go to Europe every summer. Except this summer.”
Even as he swerves into his ninth decade, Croxford is a force of nature. Few old racers are better at painting a picture of what motorcycle racing was like half a century ago – basically the Wild West, but without the cowboys and indigenous Americans.
In 1972, Croxford got his first factory ride, with John Player Norton, alongside supremely talented rider/engineer Peter Williams. “Peter was always frigging around with his bike, putting washers in the forks or something,” recalls Crox, in his thick London accent. “I’d say: ‘C’mon Peter, we’re going down the clubhouse for a pint,’ and he’d say: ‘Can’t, Crox. I’ve got to do this or that.’ I always used to have a pint at lunchtime. Frank [Perris, Norton team manager] would come into the bar at Brands Hatch: ‘Dave, they’re waiting for you, so leave the pint’. I’d say: ‘I’ll be back in a minute, boys,’ then I’d come back after a good result, they’d slap me on the back: ‘Another pint, Dave?’”
Even at the Isle of Man, he was the same. In fact this wasn’t unusual back in the day, when Crox and others sometimes drowned their early-morning practice nerves with an all-night session in a Douglas drinking den.
“The Isle of Man was just a big pub to me – the racing just got in the way. You got off the plane and you were freaking out for two weeks, so you had your beers. During one early practice session, I stopped the bike at Parliament Square. The copper goes: ‘You all right?’ I said: ‘I’ve had enough, it’s too early for me...’ I’d been out on the p*ss the night before, hadn’t I?”
Whether or not this has anything to do with the fact that Croxford had more than 200 crashes during his 16-year career is debatable. What’s even more remarkable is the fact that he never broke a bone in any of those crashes.
Croxford won his first three British championships in the late 1960s: one 350cc title on a Seeley-framed 7R and two 500 crowns on a Seeley G50. You’d presume that these successes led to his factory ride with the grandest name in British motorcycle racing, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong. “We were at Mallory in 1971 when my Seeley packed up. Norton were parked right next to me. I said: ‘Frank, you ain’t got a spare bike, have you?’ He said: ‘We’ve got that one which we use for parts.’ I said: ‘That’ll do. Is it running? Has it got petrol in it?’ I went out and done really well on it, so they asked me to do the Montjuic 24 hours with them, where we got the fastest lap.
“Next year, Frank said: ‘Dave, do you want to ride for us?’ When you first became a works rider you thought you was Jack Sh*t, didn’t you?! You went to bed in your leathers! There wasn’t that much money in it, but you got hotels, free fags and the hospitality vans.”
Crox must’ve driven poor old Frank Perris – a former factory Suzuki rider and GP winner – around the bend numerous times during his Norton years. “Brands Hatch – big international meeting – Sunday morning,” Crox continues. “I’m in bed at home. Frank rings me: ‘Dave, why aren’t you here?’ I said: ‘Frank, can’t you practice for me? I’ll be there in an hour and a half.’ I get there: ‘Morning Frank, where’d you get me on the grid? Twelfth? That’ll do.’ That’s the outside of the grid and I liked to be on the outside for Paddock Hill Bend.”
Croxford’s four seasons as a factory Norton rider played out to the sound of the collapse of the British motorcycle industry, under the weight of poor management, labour problems and Japan’s first generation of superbikes: Kawasaki’s Z1, Honda’s CB750, Suzuki’s GT750 and Kawasaki’s H2.
On the race track, the biggest challenge to the John Player Norton – powered by an 850cc Commando engine – was the new strain of kickass F750 two-strokes: Suzuki’s XR11, Kawasaki’s H2-R and Yamaha’s TZ750. The two-strokes made around 110 horsepower, the Norton less than 80. “The writing was on the wall. Every time we went to a meeting I’d look at the programme and think: ‘F***in’ hell, Dave, more Suzukis, more Yamahas; you’re banging
your head against a brick wall here. But maybe I’ll have half a chance if it rains.’”
Eventually, however, not even a downpour could save Croxford or Norton. In 1975, Crox rode for the British team in the Transatlantic Match races. The USA fielded a stellar squad, led by ‘King’ Kenny Roberts, while Crox’s great mate Barry Sheene was absent, recovering from his massive Daytona prang. The Americans dominated to win the series for the first time, because they had the most talent, the best bikes and a secret weapon.
“It rained for one of the races and the Yanks never raced in the wet, so I thought we’d wipe them out. Then: ‘What’s them tyres they’ve got?’ They were Goodyear wets, the first rain tyres we’d seen. They worked a lot better than our TT100S, so the Yanks wiped the floor with us.”
Croxford didn’t only witness the demise of the British bike industry from the hottest seat in the house, but he also witnessed the new wave of genius riders that changed bike racing forever, most importantly Roberts and Jarno Saarinen. “Kenny was a bit special. Another Transatlantic race, we’re at Mallory. Kenny and me on the front row of the grid and it’s raining a bit. I look at his bike and he’s got to be having a laugh – he’s got a slick on the back! So what do I do? I crash trying to keep up with him! I thought: ‘How does he do that with a slick tyre in the wet?’”
Croxford had seen Saarinen in action a few years earlier at Silverstone. This encounter also prompted a crash.
“I watched Saarinen coming around Woodcote in practice. I thought: ‘Bloody hell, he’s really fast’. And I thought, I should be able to do that – roll the throttle going in, then flat out. In the race I’m leading the first lap, with Roberts, Sheeney and everyone behind. Going into Woodcote, I’m thinking: ‘This is it, Dave, just keep it flat.’ Of course, the front went, didn’t it? I destroyed the bike, then got up and bowed to the crowd. Frank wasn’t happy. They gave me the remains of the bike as a lampstand.”
During his time at Norton, Croxford got to race some special machinery, which the company vainly hoped would keep the two-stroke hordes at bay. First was the monocoque John Player F750 bike, designed by Williams, son of AJS engineer Jack Williams. The innovative chassis showed promise, but was parked due to lack of vision from management. Norton’s last chance was the so-called Challenge, powered by an all-new water-cooled 750 twin – basically two cylinders from the legendary Cosworth DFV Formula 1 engine. Despite personal input from DFV designer Keith Duckworth, the engine turned out to be too big, too heavy and was beset with all manner of problems. After years of development, the Challenge made its debut at the 1975 season-ending Brands Hatch international, the engine still way off Norton’s 115 horsepower target. “The Challenge was a bloody nightmare – everywhere we went testing it was a second and a half slower than the old bike. It was rideable out of the box and quick in a straight line, but then you got to the corners... As soon as you rolled off the throttle it tried to fling you down the road. The engine had a very short stroke and a counterbalance weight that weighed about nine kilos, so when you rolled off the throttle it locked the back wheel. “I proved the point to the engineers when we went testing at Snetterton. I said: ‘Look, I’ll go past the pits and you’ll
‘I LOST MY LICENCE TWICE BY THE TIME I WAS 17, SO THOUGHT I’D GO RACING’
see what happens.’ So I went past, shut it off and skidded sideways at about 120mph. I said: ‘See?’ The Challenge was never really on.”
Croxford won races and titles for Norton, most importantly the 1973 British 750cc Championship. His first big win for the company came in 1972, when he shared a Commando 750 with Mick Grant to win the prestigious Thruxton 500-mile production race. The pair were presented with the awards alongside Dennis Poore, the entrepreneur and former car racer who became director of Norton Villiers Triumph, all that was left of the once globally dominant British bike industry. The merger of the two firms made Croxford a factory Triumph rider as well as a factory Norton rider, so in 1975 he got to ride Slippery Sam, the Triumph factory’s legendary Trident production racer, so-named for its oil leaks. He shared the bike with Alex George to win the 10-lap production TT.
“I was never a fan of the TT – it used to frighten the life out of me. But riding Slippery Sam was the only time I enjoyed myself there. I preferred the triple to the Norton twin proddie racer because it was like a fast, comfortable armchair.”
Croxford drifted into racing after spending his youth ducking and diving on the bombsites of West London. “I can remember the bloody V-1 missiles in 1943! We grew up mucking about in bombed-out buildings, ‘Oh look, there’s a bit of bomb here.’ Bombsites were our playground – you could do what you bloody liked in them days. Then, when we were about 10 or 11 we’d get old mopeds and ride around the roads on them.
“I got my first bike when I was 16 – a little Ambassador which I rode to the Ace Cafe and hid around the back, so I could pretend I was one of the boys. That’s where a lot of racers started.
“I’d lost my licence twice by the time I was 17, so thought: ‘OK, I’m going racing!’ I went to Monty and Wards in Kingston and bought a Manx Norton, dumped the engine in the shed and put a Tiger 100 engine in there. “Then you buy Tuning for Speed by Phil Irving and you read the book... Balance the crankshaft? Can’t do that. Polish the ports? Don’t know how to do that. Raise compression? Nah. Ah, what’s this then? Make your bike lighter? So, you drill holes all over your bike.”
Crox made his race debut in 1961, at Charterhall, a WWII airfield in Scotland. “I get there, go out in practice, and it’s not too bad. Four of my mates have come with me, so they’re asking: ‘What’s your plan Dave?’ There’s Mike Hailwood there, Bob Mcintyre, Alistair King... I said: ‘Well, I’m going to follow them, then at the last corner I’m going to out-brake them.’ I really thought I was going to win, I really did. Of course, I finished near on last. I thought to myself: ‘Bloody hell, these boys are fast’.”
Dave Croxford rode his last professional race in 1976, the Thruxton 500-mile race, aboard a Honda CBX1000 six. “I walked out of the track, bought myself a fishing rod and never went back.” Well, not for 20 years, anyway...