Mike’s Bikes: Part Two
A world champion within four seasons!
Onwards and upwards with two wheels, the four-wheeled sessions and the pre-return return that happened in New Zealand.
Four more World Championships in the Honda years, the Daytona 200, F1 car racing and the Le Mans 24 Hours – and then that Isle of Man TT comeback…
By the time his career entered its second decade in 1966, Mike Hailwood had won four World Championships, seven TT races and taken innumerable other victories riding no less than 26 different types of bike from 15 manufacturers! Over the next dozen years there were many more machines to race and many more successes to come.
1966 and 1967 The Hondas and a demonstration lap or two
Among the successes there were four more world titles during Mike’s well-documented career with Honda. These came in 1966 and 1967 in the 250cc and 350cc categories, mainly thanks two of the most legendary racing motorcycles of all time, the six-cylinder screamers in 250cc and 297cc forms. Now that it enjoys legendary status, people tend to forget the Honda six-cylinder engine was not an immediate success. There were many teething pains in 1964 and 1965 as the first 250cc sixes were developed and the world title went to Phil Read and Yamaha in both of those years.
In 1966, however, the RC166 proved to be a dominant force. Mike led the assault on Yamaha and took handsome revenge for the defeats of the previous two years. He won all 10 races he entered and easily handed Honda the title. He repeated the championship in 1967, although the battle with Yamaha’s Read was far closer that season. The pair were tied in points but Mike took the title due to his five Grand Prix wins versus Read’s four.
When Mike joined Honda for the 1966 season, Jim Redman had previously ruled the 350cc class and had taken the title in each of the four previous years – first riding a 285cc version of the 1962 250cc four-cylinder and then the full 350cc development of that bike. But Mike had underlined the potential of f the three-cylinder MV Agusta by winning th e last 350cc Grand Prix of the 1965 season at Honda’s home circuit of Suzuka in Japan. Ho onda took due notice of this and did two things – they signed Mike and built a brand new 350!
The four-cylinder RC173 was almost as dominant as the 250cc six and, apart from two retirements (in the East German GP and the TT), Mike won every Grand Prix he entered (six in all) and comfortably scored a World Championship double.
One would have thought that would have satisfied the Honda management but they gave Mike an even more potent weapon for 1967 – the 297cc ‘big bore’ version of the Honda six. Designated the RC174, it took Mike to victory in every race that he entered that season and another World Championship double was the result.
However, not every Honda ride was as glamorous for Mike as his Grand Prix outings on the six-cylinder racers. At Brands Hatch in 1966 he was supposed to ride a new Honda CB450 twin in the Brands Hatch 500-mile race for production road bikes but was unable unabl to compete, as the FIM refused to ho omolo gate the CB450 as a production machine. The stated reason for this was be ecause the 450cc engine had twin ov ver head camshafts and therefore, in the e eyes of the FIM rule-makers, could no ot possibly be a street bike! It was an ind dication of how the Japanese were mo oving far ahead of the rest of the mo otorcycle world at that time. To keep the big crowd happy, the Bra ands Hatch organisers allowed Mike to ride the bike on track for a few laps as a ‘demonstration’ of the newcomer fro om Japan.
There was, of course, a far more fea ar some Honda 500 in Mike’s future. This machine was the legendary four-cylinder RC 181, with which Mike and Honda had hopped tot opp leGia co mo Agostini and the e MV Agusta from the top of the 500cc Wo orld Championship standings – a position the Italian star had inherited after Mike’s dep parture from the Italian factory. As A history now tells us, this was not the foregone conclusion that many thought it might be, given Mike’s skills and Hon nda’s run of successes in the smaller Championship Ch classes.
The MV was not as powerful as the Honda, but it was more compact and much better handling. It also had a torque curve that allowed it to get all of its power to the ground for maximum traction without undue drama. The Honda’s behaviour, on the other hand, was the diametrically opposite! It had more power than the MV but a steeper torque curve and this meant that all the extra horsepower came in with a bang. Getting that power to the ground via the relatively tiny contact patch with the road that the narrow tyres of the day provided was all drama!
The RC181 made its debut in the 1966 West German GP in the hands of Redman. He had won the 250cc World Championship in 1962 and 1963 and taken four 350 titles in a row between 1962 and 1965. The plan for 1966 was for Redman to be the focus of the Honda attack on the 500cc title with Mike concentrating on regaining the 250 title from Yamaha, beating MV Agusta in the 350cc class and riding the 500 only in selected events.
Redman won the opening 500cc round of the season, using the power of the Honda to eclipse Agostini and the MV triple on the fast straights of Hockenheim in the West German GP. He then won again in the Dutch TT at Assen, another track that did not demand too much from the Honda’s handling. The next race was the Belgian Grand Prix on the fearsomely fast road circuit at Spa Francorchamps, where the RC181 recorded 172mph through the speed trap in a dry practice session. Unfortunately, and especially so for Redman, the race was run in torrential rain. The Honda aquaplaned off the track at one of its fastest points and Redman badly broke his arm in the ensuing crash. The injury was to mean the six-time champion’s retirement from racing. Redman’s departure led to Mike having to try to wrest the 500cc title from Agostini, as well as trying to beat him in the 350 class and being expected to conquer the rasping new two-stroke Yamaha fours of Read and Bill Ivy in the 250cc class for good measure! Mike did win both the 250 and 350cc titles, but to make it three was a herculean task and the 500cc title proved a challenge too far – especially as Mike had not contested the earliest points-paying races with the big four. The season ended with Mike and Agostini each having won three races but Ago had a solid string of second places and therefore took the title by a six-point margin.
Mike’s efforts in three massively competitive classes had been incredible throughout 1966 and he was winning races on a 500 that was manifestly less efficient than his rival’s well-sorted MV. Its evil handling was obvious even to the spectators and never more so than at the Isle of Man TT where, in an epic battle that saw him beat Agostini on the bumpy roads of the Mountain circuit, Mike admitted to using all of the available road and the kerbs as well!
Mike had been a busy man earlier in that 1966 TT week, as he had won the 250cc race from his Honda team-mate Stuart Graham and even had an outing on the five-cylinder 125. On this little jewel he finished in sixth place behind the Yamaha and Suzuki two-strokes. Mike was the first Honda home as the rest of the team had various mechanical problems. The ride was significant for Mike in that it meant that he had ridden two, four, five and six-cylinder Hondas during his tenure with the Japanese factory!
The latter end of the 1966 season had been a man-to-man battle with Agostini and the only difference in 1967 was that the same battle went on all season long.
It was Mike’s final season in Grand Prix racing and what an incredible season it was.
With the six-cylinder Honda he fought off the Yamaha fours of Read and Ivy to win the 250cc title. With its 297cc bigger brother he trounced Agostini by six GP wins to one in taking the 350cc title. Then, in the 500cc class, he and Ago were tied on points! They each won five Grands Prix but Agostini scored one more second place to take the title. Without doubt, it was the finest season of Mike’s illustrious career.
Finest season or not, it ended in more disappointment as Honda joined with the other Japanese manufacturers and pulled their factory teams out of World Championship racing at the end of the year. To compensate for this, Honda allowed Mike to keep the 500cc four and use it to contest the non-championship international races that paid big start money to star riders. Allegedly, they also paid Mike a big chunk of cash in return for signing a contract via which he agreed not to ride the bike in the Grand Prix races.
1968 and 1969 A brief stint with Benelli and some cars
In September 1968, Mike’s ‘no Grands Prix’ agreement with Honda was over and done with, so he accepted a ride for Benelli in the Italian GP at Monza, with Renzo Pasolini as his teammate on the Pesaro factory’s new 500cc four. Mike was contesting the lead of the rain-lashed race with old adversary Agostini on the MV triple when he crashed out, leaving second place to Pasolini. So ended Mike’s final participation in the World Championship Grands Prix
In the 1969 season Mike focussed his efforts on long-distance car racing, with the highlight of the season his third place finish in the Le Mans 24 Hours race co-driving a Ford GT40 with David Hobbs. Later in the season he rode a Seeley G50 in the Mallory Park ‘Race of the Year’ but the British single was uncompetitive against race-winner Agostini on the MV and the new wave of Yamaha two-stroke twins.
1970 and 1971 Bsa/triumphs in the US and Yamaha 350s (and driving for John Surtees)
The next manufacturer to tempt Mike back into the saddle was the British Bsa/triumph motorcycle group that was launching a massive attack on the Daytona 200 in 1970 and included him in its seven-man effort. The attack started well with Gene Romero’s Triumph fastest in qualifying on one flying lap of the banked oval at an average speed of 157.342mph and Mike next up at 152.99mph on his BSA.
In the opening laps of the race Mike was one of half a dozen riders trading the lead back and forth. Unfortunately not for long, however – the BSA triple began to overheat and burned out the piston in its central cylinder. Mike’s race had lasted just 38 miles of the scheduled 200 when he went out on the 10th lap. Victory went to Dick Mann on the Honda 750 four.
Even so,, Mike had enjoyed both riding the big BSA and spending a week or two in March in the Florida sunshine, so he had no hesitation about accepting BSA’S offer to return in 1971 and ride one of the new ‘lowboy’ versions of the triple.
For that year the qualifying procedure was a lap of the full road course rather than just the flat-out blast around the oval. Once again, Mike was well in the hunt. He put the BSA on the front row in fifth place along with Paul Smart (Triumph), who was the fastest qualifier at 105.82mph, plus Harley-davidson teamsters Cal Rayborn and Mark Brelsford, and fellow BSA rider Don Emde. All five on the front row had topped the 105mph mark of the previous lap record.
When the flag dropped, Mike was again one of a group of riders contesting the lead in the opening laps and, by the 50-mile mark, he and fellow Englishman Smart were putting on a show for the crowd and trading places for the lead. Unfortunately, it ended seven miles later when Mike’s BSA stopped with a burned-out exhaust valve. Smart went out
with a similar problem at three-quarter race distance and, for the second year in a row, victory went to Dick Mann, this time riding a BSA similar to Mike’s.
There was another motorcycle outing in August that year when Mike appeared at the big Silverstone international meeting on a Yamaha 350 two-stroke twin, almost anonymous in a plain white full-face Bell Star helmet. On the unfamiliar production racer, he finished fourth in the 350cc race behind similarly mounted Yamaha riders. On the same bike he then placed fourth again in the F750 race at the same meeting – this time being the first 350 home behind three 750s.
At the Mallory Park ‘Race of the Year’ a month later, he rode the same Yamaha and was fourth in the 350 race, but then failed to finish the big race of the day, going out with broken piston rings.
When he was combining driving a Lotus BRM with racing motorcycles for MV Agusta in 1963 and 1964, Mike scored a couple of F1 Grand Prix podium places but 1971 was the year in which he began to concentrate on Formula One. He was driving for the team that was owned by former motorcycle world hampion, the late John Surtees, who was th e only man to win world titles on two and fo ur wheels.
Undoubtedly, Mike had ambitions of em mulating that feat and the week before his Mallory Park bike outing in mid-september he ha ad been in contention for a victory at his first F1 race in six years, the 1971 Italian Grand Pr ix. He and the three other drivers in the top fo ur were in a group covered by less than two 10 0ths of a second at the finish, with Mike un nfortunately on the tail end of the 160mph slipstreaming quartet.
1972 and 1974 Team Surtees and a works Mclaren
After that, there was ample evidence that Mike could make it to the highest levels in car racing. Driving for Team Surtees, he won the 1972 Formula Two European Championship title and, in 1974, he drove a works Mclaren. Unfortunately, however, he crashed at the German Grand Prix on the Nürburgring that year and suffered lower leg injuries that would prevent him from being able to drive a racing car again. He quit the sport and retired to New Zealand, where he became involved in a marine equipment and boat sales.
Unsurprisingly, within two years of his F1 career-ending crash, he was already getting bored and, although in his mid-thirties, some form of motorcycle racing was the answer to that!
1978 and 1979 That Island ride and a final year of competition
In January 1977 there was a classic bike meeting at Amaroo Park, near Sydney in Australia. Grabbing the opportunity to ride a bike again, Mike guested at the event on a Manx Norton and, during the races, enjoyed a couple of good dices with journalist and Matchless G50 racer Jim Scaysbrook.
Soon after that, the pair agreed to partner together on a Ducati 750SS in the Castrol Six-hours Race later in the year. They finished second in the 750 class and sixth overall at that important Australian race and resolved to do it again – and more – in 1978.
The 1978 season started in April with another Australian production race, this time a three-hour race in Adelaide. On the Ducati 750SS Mike and Scaysbrook again got up to sixth place but a ‘splash and dash’ late pit stop dropped them to ninth.
By then Mike truly had the bike racing urge again and at Easter he raced a Yamaha TZ750 at the fearsome and fast Bathurst public roads circuit, where he finished 10th in torrential rain. The scene was set for his return to the most fearsome road circuit of all – the Isle of Man Mountain course.
It actually had not been that long since Mike had ridden over the Mountain. During the 1977 Manx GP practice period he had ridden a lap on a Yamaha TZ750, carrying on-board film cameras for Peter Starr’s award-winning motorcycle documentary, Take it to the Limit.
There were several stops during the lap – needed to change the magazines in the film cameras – but Mike’s total time in action would have been the equivalent to that of a 106mph lap! The stage was set for that 1978 comeback.
From his experience with the 750SS Ducati in Australia, Mike knew that the high torque and relaxed power delivery of the 90° V-twin would make it a great bike for the mostly flowing high-speed curves of the IOM Mountain course, so the marque was his first choice for the TT F1 race on the Island.
The 900SS, on which he took his famous win in that race, was one of only three such bikes specially prepared by the NCR race
shop in Italy, the acknowledged top tuners of Ducati V-twins. Two of those went to Steve Wynne at Sports Motorcycles in Manchester and Steve secured Mike’s services to ride one of them for a bargain £1000 fee.
Quite probably Mike could have got more from elsewhere but the Ducati was the bike he wanted because he felt he could win on it – and winning was more important than money. Of course he did win the 1978 TTF1 race (at an average speed of 108.51mph) and thereby a legend was born!
The sponsorship Mike received from Martini to ride Yamahas in other races during that 1978 TT week was undoubtedly considerably more than his riding fee for the F1 effort but, sadly, his results on the Japanese two-strokes did not match what he achieved on the Ducati.
He retired the 500cc Yamaha four-cylinder from the Senior TT race with mechanical problems and, on a 250cc Yamaha twin, finished 12th in the Junior TT – one place behind a young Joey Dunlop.
On the Sunday after the Senior TT Mike was to ride the Ducati at the traditional Post TT Mallory Park meeting where, as can be imagined, a massive crowd turned out to see if he could repeat his TT win on the tight and tricky Leicestershire track.
Mike lay fifth in the early stages of the 20-lap F1 race but was up to third by lap five, behind Read on the Honda GBTTF1 bike and John Cowie on the P&M Kawasaki. Passing Read into second place on the ninth lap, Mike took the lead from Cowie on lap 12 and then simply motored away to win. It was a performance almost as impressive as the TT win, as it showed that Mike, at 38, was still capable of winning on both short circuits and road courses.
The last British race for Mike in that comeback season was at Donington but this time there was disappointment as he crashed the Ducati at Coppice Corner. Back in Australia, he and Scaysbrook got together again to ride the Ducati 750SS in the Castrol Six-hour race. Mike started last on the grid due to mechanical problems in practice but by one-and-a-half hours into the race he was well up the list. Scaysbrook then took over at the refuelling, only to crash a few laps when the Ducati gearbox seized.
In the summer of 1979 Mike was back to contest the TT once more, along with the Maallory Park Race of the Year and the latee-season Donington International. He would do so riding Suzuki machinery – a maarque on which he had never ridden before.
The short circuit races were a dissappointment. There was a retirement at Mallory with brake trouble on the big Dunstall Suzuki F1 four-cylinder four-stroke andd a crash on his RG500 two-stroke in practice for Donington that left him with a broken collarbone.
His TT career, however, ended on the highest possible note, although not in the TTT F1 race, where many hoped he would repeat his 1978 Ducati win. The big Japanese F1 four-strokes had accelerated their development over the previous year and proved too hot for Mike annd the Ducati to handle.
Honda riders took all three of the podium places, with Alex George winning from Charlie Williams and Ron Haslam. Graham Crosby was fourth for Kawasaki, while Mike brought the Ducati home in fifth place.
The biggest prize of all when it comes to racing on the Isle of Man, however, is the Senior TT. How fitting, therefore, that Mike finished his Isle of Man career with a Senior TT win 18 years after taking his first of that most glittering of prizes!
On a four-cylinder RG500 Suzuki twostroke, with which he had no previous racing experience, Mike won the 1979 Senior race at an average speed of 111.75mph – two miles an hour quicker than his closest rivals, Tony Rutter and Dennis Ireland.
Not only that, he only just missed out on a final TT double when he averaged over 113mph in the Classic TT but he was bested by Alex George by just 3.4sec.
Mike retired from racing in 1979 at the age of 39. By then, in the four different Grand Prix classes, from 125 through 250 and 350 to 500cc, he had amassed 76 victories, 112 podium places and nine World Championships, as well as 14 wins in the Isle of MANTT.
It is no wonder, therefore, that nearly 30 years after his tragic death in a 1981 road accident, ‘Mike the Bike’ is still remembered and revered today as one of the greatest riders of all time.