CHANGING TIMES
Peggy Hyde certainly had the talent but she never reached A-grade status. “I was stuck in B-grade for all the usual reasons people find it hard to progress to the top level today: money and sponsorship,” she says. “I knew I had A-grade riding ability but there weren’t a lot of A-graders around in those days and they had the top machinery and industry backing. That 1970 Calder win was so important to me because it was a Production race against A-graders so we were all on the same level of machinery. “For that reason the first Castrol Six Hour is another racing highlight. That was before systematic cheating got into it and money and the promotion of winning took over.” Peggy became a fixture at the Six Hour. In 1971 she teamed up on an S2 350cc Kawasaki with Janet Middleton, who became a long-time friend. Janet had been in an all-female team at the first Castrol Six Hour. They were outclassed on a completely standard bike but were the class act, Janet in pink leathers and Peggy in white. Peggy raced a CB500 Honda in 1972 with leading rider Gordon Doble. It was the start of a long friendship with Barry Ryan, owner of Ryan’s of Parramatta. “We did pre-event testing, developed a strategy and did a lot better than the results (11th in class) show,” she says. “There were lap-scoring errors that year that saw 100 laps taken off our total. Barry Ryan was always easy-going and it was really his call to take it further.” She missed the 1973 event because she was stuck at home on the farm fighting a bushfire. Peggy teamed with Tim Parry (Parry’s Motorcycles, Hornsby) on the updated Kawasaki Mach III model in 1974 but was shunted off the track. “Witnesses are adamant that another rider deliberately hit my back wheel going into a turn,” she says. “I went flying down a cliff completely off the bike and just holding on to the handlebars. As I realised I was going to rejoin the track I pulled the front brake to lay it down and was knocked out. The word around the pits was that I’d broken my neck and the crash footage was replayed endlessly on the TV coverage.” When 1975 came around Peggy was drifting away from racing. “I didn’t fill out the entry forms when they arrived,” she says. “I was starting to question what motorcycle racing was all about and was becoming aware of environmental issues. I was at a place in my life where I had made a connection with the land, the soil under my feet on the farm.” Peggy and Julian separated in 1979 and divorced in 1980. She found another interest to replace motorcycle racing: yachting. “I started sailing on Sydney Harbour and kept wanting to sail out through the Heads,” she remembers. “Then one day I did. Feeling the tiller come alive, tugging against the wind in the sails, gave me the same feeling as a motorcycle’s adhesion to the road and having its controls in my hands. It’s also about self-reliance and a calculated risk.” Peggy Hyde sailed into a new life that involved a case of kidnapping and two decades of environmental campaigning in North Queensland. But that’s another story to tell. She has lived on that yacht since 1984.
“HYDE HAD TWO SECONDS AT ALL TIMES FROM BLAKE, WHO MADE A DESPERATE ATTEMPT ON THE LAST LAP TO REGAIN MALE HONOUR BUT HE WENT DOWN.”