Austin Hockley
Fearless Fighter
In a career lasting 12 years Austin has had a great deal of success. He was the British 125 champion in 1972, took the British 250 crown the following year and was runner-up in the 125cc series the same year. He also crashed a great deal, robbing him of even more success and breaking a total of 22 bones. Born in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire on January 18, 1947, he was a pillion passenger from time to time on the BSA Gold Star ridden on the roads by his uncle, Bob Barson. Austin, his parents and another uncle, Fred Parsons, who owned a car, went to many race meetings at Alton Towers, Mallory and Cadwell Park. When he was 16 Austin bought a motorcycle to get him to his job as an apprentice at Rolls Royce in Derby and in 1966 he began to marshal at places like Mallory and his interest in the sport grew. Like many others before him, speeding on public roads persuaded Austin to start road racing. After fracturing his knee in a spill on his road bike, a Triumph TR6 Austin, he began a friendship with sidecar racer Ron Coxon, from Burton-on-trent, who took him around while his leg was in plaster. That road accident actually put paid to Austin’s first planned road race meeting, where he was to have raced the Triumph, but instead Coxon sold Austin an outfit and he built a Triumph motor to go in it. Sidecar racing wasn’t a success! “The problem was you could never get passengers who were happy to help out with expenses, all they wanted to do was go racing,” complains Austin. He only raced about half a dozen meetings on the sidecar in 1967, at Aintree, Brands Hatch, Snetterton and Cadwell Park. He finished in just one. The engine blew up frequently. He had two passengers, Mick Wilkinson and Mick “Fluke” Sills, who remains a good friend to this day, still riding bikes with Austin on the roads. The lack of reliability and the cost of racing an outfit were