A family affair
Families often race together and friends who help out often become part of that family. We at Classic Racer want to shine a light on these ‘racing families’ so, read part one of the Morris family’s story, by Neil Morris.
Families often go race… and – as a result – the various non-related hangers-on, helpers and friends become part of the ‘larger family’ in the race paddocks. Here’s a heartfelt story from Neil Morris, of his time with his family’s team – Chrysalis Racing.
‘The paddock was our social life’, my mum used to say. After all, we were more likely to indulge in beans on toast in the pit garage than cordon bleu at the à la carte restaurant. Weekends away generally involved standing in the pouring rain, fingers and toes being bereft of all feeling. I would stand robust against the torrent, warmed by the sight of my dad extending a seven second lead around a sopping wet racetrack.
I’d have my Auntie Dawn for company and my nan would have a flask of tea on the go, along with an anxious look on her face. And often my grandad would be chatting up a woman half his age, and telling her how much he paid for his sheepskin coat.
All in all, it was a time where I was totally unaware that the British Isles had a coastline. We travelled from our Southampton home and always drove inland, usually with me falling asleep in the van before the off. I’d wake up when dad hit the brakes at the end of our road. “Are we there yet?” I’d enquire. “Go back to sleep” was the usual reply…
It’s a time that is missed by us all, the remaining members of the Chrysalis Racing ‘family.’ And by that I mean remaining relatives, close friends and loyal hangers-on who all became our extended family. Every single one of us took something from Chrysalis Racing and we all lost a great deal too…
My dad, David Morris, clinched two British titles and three Isle of Man TT victories during a racing career that spanned three decades. He built, tuned and raced some of the prettiest bikes around. And not only did they look sweet, they were bloody fast too.
Mum Alison was one of those women oft described as chief cook and bottle washer, in a vain attempt at giving credit to a woman very much in a man’s world. However, mum was the reason Chrysalis Racing flew like the butterfly that inspired its colours and its branding. A former art student, she cast her brush across rider and machine to make all Chrysalis racing machinery look divine. But equally, she got it all trackside in the first place.
Mum organised sponsorship from illustrious motorcycle suppliers and supporters, organised a selection of team members for every meeting, sorted travel, food, clothing, boarding – mum harangued organisers and steered public relations by making sure they were recognising both ‘her man’ and her team.
“RACING FOR THE MORRIS CLAN WAS ALWAYS ABOUT FAMILY – EVEN IF SOME OF THE TEAM CREW WEREN’T ACTUALLY RELATED TO US! DAD WAS THE TALENTED ENGINEER AND RACER, WHILE MUM WAS THE REASON THAT CHRYSALIS RACING FLEW LIKE THE BUTTERFLY IT WAS.”
The team itself started simply as an amalgamation of two names. Chris Caffyn (close friend of the Morris family and sponsor to the team, along with husband Steve) lent her Christian name to be glued tight to the first syllable of Alison, David’s wife, and team boss,to form ‘Chrys-alis’. Creative spark from Alison sewed the team’s new identity to the butterfly motif, the Chrysalis, a new beginning as it were, being as the team was heading across the continent for the World Endurance series.
Endurance racing in the 1980s spanned romantic hillside circuits deemed too unsafe for motorcycle consumption nowadays. Osterreichring (now the Red Bull Ring) avoided modern day chicanes and hairpins and instead swept into the countryside at an alarming pace. Montjuic Park snaked through the side streets of Barcelona and the iconic Spa Francorchamps still (back then) allowed 1000cc motorcycle weaponry to hang heavy in the mist through Eau Rouge and Blanchimont.
It was in this environment where the strongest bonds of the Chrysalis team were formed. At Imola for the 24 hours in 1982, the British outfit befriended a millionaire purveyor of oil tankers called Harry Rutten. More likely to be seen in a crumpled Armani suit and a knackered Saab 900 than a luxury yacht, Harry literally bailed the team out of hot water with the Italian authorities.
Morris and co-rider Trevor Nation arrived the Wednesday before race weekend and announced to the organisers that they’d like to practise on track, and didn’t waste any time before doing a few laps.
Bright and early the next morning the organisers rocked up demanding £200 in lieu of the track time. Having waited it out, hoping it was just a mistake, the team were then met with the clerk of the course and two policemen. As dad stood pleading his case, they wheeled his Suzuki GS1000 race bike away to be impounded. The team were on a shoestring and couldn’t afford to spend their way out of the problem. Harry ran a rival Moto Guzzi team at the time out of the same pit. He paid the fee to get the bike out so dad and Trevor could race and the name ‘Transpetrol’ (Harry’s firm) was emblazoned on the Chrysalis Endurance bikes for some time after: a true testament to the sportsmanship of the time in that paddock. The team finished 6th.
The team was a well drilled unit. Mum would time-keep along with some of dad’s co-riders’ wives or partners. Team stalwart and close family friend Dave Bromfield would act as pit leader in effect, as well as race technician. An unflappable chap with an infectious sense of humour, Dave had the respect of all and was a rock. Good friend Hank was the fuel man as well as being a bit of an extrovert. Both Dave B and Hank
would later serve in the Chrysalis pit at the TT and Hank would usually hole up at one of the many Island campsites. One year the infamous Manx weather was so bad that Hank’s canvas was tested to destruction. Not content with merely chucking it in the bin, Hank took it home to Basingstoke, walked it down into his back garden and set fire to all his camping gear.
Back to Endurance and you can add dad’s youngest sister Dawn into the mix. Friend and confidante of Alison and more of a big sister to myself and big brother Lee, Dawn was just the best of company, would muck in and would let us boys get away with a bit more than mum and dad would.
Others came and went, but Chrysalis cofounders Steve and Chris remained right up to their purchase of the Honda RC30 that dad would take to a superb 9th place finish at Spa in 1989 and beyond. Their daughters Katrina, Lucille and Sharon felt just like family, much the same as their parents.
My brother Lee had once claimed to have stayed up for an entire 24-hour race, so (typical sibling rivalry) I decided I would attempt the same in 1989. Perhaps it was the copious amounts of frites and mayonnaise as well as me ragging our little Italjet 50 around the paddock that caused me to fall asleep at 3am. However, I awoke to the best sight and sound: dad trying to keep pace with the RVF factory V4 Honda on his own Dave Morris-tuned RC. Yes, I’d missed four hours of the race…
It was tough being a kid in that environment sometimes. I was a bit of a needy child and we were pretty tactile as a family. So keeping your distance whilst your mum and dad were busy ‘working’ was not always easy. It’s for that reason I’ll never forget my dad breaking away from the pit garage during a pause in stints to bollock the toilet attendant who tried to charge me 5 francs to take a piss whilst I was clearly crossing my legs with not enough change. He didn’t love me any less when he was racing! I was still his boy!
The Chrysalis Racing mission took an unexpected turn shortly after that final endurance race for the team. Co-rider Barrie Middleton approached Steve Caffyn about racing the RC at the Manx Grand Prix that season. Steve agreed and took dad along to keep an eye on the engine. Dad never seemed very bothered about the Isle of Man. He had raced at the Ulster Grand Prix before, so it wasn’t an aversion to the roads, but he never seemed enthused about Mona’s Isle.
That all changed when he had to ride the RC on open roads to make sure it was dialled in for the race. He described it to a journalist back in 1992: “I pulled this enormous wheelie going down to the Creg and thought – boy, what a thrill!” So, in 1990 he had the Honda for the F1 and Senior, an ill-handling FZR600 and a pink (yes pink) RGV250. How my mum made a pink bike look good is still beyond me. Dad finished best newcomer in all but one race (a one and only TT crash on the little Suzuki stroker after it ran out of fuel going into the Creg) and he finished a best of 17th in a soggy Senior TT won by Carl Fogarty.
There we befriended Nick and May Brown who (like many Island residents) opened up their home and perhaps most crucially their double garage to the team up in Onchan. Nick hit it off with mum, particularly as kingpin of the local media company who dished out the TT programme amongst many other titles. May kept milk in the fridge and the kettle hot. How Mick coped with his garden getting jaded with endless streams of petrol and (when permitted) Avgas, is testament to a typically laid-back Manx attitude. Their house was always open. Indeed, my brother let himself in unannounced outside of TT fortnight one year and helped himself to a cup of tea whilst Nick and May sat in the lounge wondering if they were being burgled...
In 1997 at the TT, dad stood at the top of a podium. Unassuming was a word often associated with dad. He never sought adulation. We (that was mum, Lee and I) wanted it for him and craved to see his name in lights, but dad really wasn’t bothered. He raced for himself: he didn’t need others to credit him for it. But in 1997 he did it – he won a TT race. It was a bizarre fortnight. Dad was having issues with a Ducati Superbike (another gratefully received sponsorship from Steve and Chris Caffyn) and his FZR400 was down on horsepower. He was not used to being unable to solve problems. But his Chrysalis BMW F650 Supermono was in perfect race trim. He put together a good practice week on it and duly won the race – BMW’S first solo TT race since its only other victory back in 1939. This was big league…
1998 was bigger still: a second successive triumph in the Singles TT and the only nonhonda victory of the TT that year. Dad beat long-time and respected rival Jim Moodie in the race, but not before we had a heart-inmouth pit stop. Our endurance experience always paid dividends at the TT – we would practice our stops religiously up at Nick and May’s garage. In our race stop we had the usual challenge of a boiling hot single cylinder motorcycle, high compression and a stubborn refusal to start. The first failed attempt from myself and pit chief Dave returned an audible gasp from the grandstand. The second felt like all the air got sucked out of the room. The third and it finally went, dad recaught Moodie on the road and had it won.
For 1999, rivals wanted to beat dad to the Singles win – especially John Barton on the Ducati Supermono. Barton dominated practice and as a team, we were concerned. Dad (as always) didn’t seem bothered. He got on with the job, wasn’t worried about being fastest in practice and just got set-up for the race. Indeed, the only thing that wound him up was the weather putting paid to running a new bike he was developing with long-time supporters Harris Performance. The new incarnation managed just one wet lap of practice, so he decided to put his best engine back in his ‘old faithful’ that had taken his two victories.
Barton had a second fuel tank on his machine to offset an expensive pit stop. The rules always were very liberal in the Singles class but the fragile Italian Supermono proved exactly that. Dad led the race coming into the pits, predictably lost it coming out and at that stage we were all facing the prospect of losing the race. Suddenly the old adage ‘to finish first, first you must finish’, rang true (it always does when you’re pushing 113mph
laps on a 750 single...) Suddenly the Ducati broke and dad picked up the pieces for a third win in a row.
The first thing to come out of the roving pitlane idiot interviewer’s mouth was: ‘You wouldn’t have won if John Barton had kept going.’ I wasn’t a particularly angry young man back then, but at that time I just remember thinking ‘f*ck you!’ Such is the passion for ‘the team.’ My dad run a calculated pace, he’d built his bloody bike, developed it, improved it and most of all kept it reliable every single season. Nothing was going to water down that achievement…
The ‘Chrysalis family’ lost my dad, David Morris on September 19, 1999. Dad was racing at Croft for the first time during a season that took an unplanned turn. He’d raced round one of that year’s British Supermono series to blow off the cobwebs of the off-season. Indeed, uncharacteristically he hadn’t even refreshed the Chrysalis BMW for the event. But through a set of circumstances including his rivals throwing it at the scenery, he won both races at a sodden Snetterton circuit and took a healthy series lead with him to round two. Now he was in it until the end. He couldn’t ignore such an advantage.
So mum, dad, Steve, Chris and Tony took the long drive North to Yorkshire and Croft. Dad was unusually confident going up there, telling Lee he’d have the race wrapped up no problem. He didn’t need much from race one to win the title over nearest challenger Steve Marlow and sure enough he blitzed the field after Marlow broke down early on. He was a convincing winner of that race, breaking the lap record and in turn becoming a now double British champion, having won his first back in 1992.
The second race wasn’t the same. Dad led again, but he crashed early on and was killed instantly. Mum witnessed the loss of her soul-mate and despite some characteristic stoicism, she would sadly die also, just six days later. Mum had been suffering from illness for four years prior and Lee and I were convinced that dad’s death became too tough to handle.
It’s ironic that ‘the Butterfly effect’ is a principle whereby if you alter something in the past, you can divert the path of the future. That’s how I feel having not been there that day when dad died – Lee felt the same too.
By then, we were both in our twenties, finding girls and both working, so the importance of racing was dissipating for us – besides, dad told us not to worry about attending in his own way.
Racing didn’t disappear when they went – we carried on – in their names, which you will hear about next time.