THE ROCKET MEN
Ron Haslam did it all in his professional life and then he had to see his own son go through the mill in his career.
In part two of this story, Ron recalls the formation of ‘Team Haslam’ at the birth of his first child Leon, and his racing career right up until the end.
As I started the first part of the story of ‘Rocket' Ron Haslam with an anecdote, it's worth starting this – part two – with another one. It's 1996 and Ron and Ann Haslam have just started their Honda Ron Haslam Race School at Donington Park, a school that would teach almost 90,000 eager students over its 24-year run. And one of the first was me.
I'd ridden a lot on the road and – being a reporter for a particular weekly motorcycling newspaper – I'd been asked along to write something about this new school. My pleasure – what a job! I was bobbing around on a Honda CBR600F, up ahead my instructor Adrian Clarke was keeping a beady eye on me in his mirrors.
As I exit Mclean's suddenly, out of nowhere is this ‘DOFF, DOFF, DOFF, DOFF' sound, approaching me from behind. I've been told not to worry about faster people coming past: don't look behind – concentrate on what's happening ahead. Sadly I'm new to this and I leave a gap going into Coppice. ‘DOFF, DOFF, DOFF'… up the inside of me comes a bike. I can't help but glance across to my right. I'm looking at a bike, Honda's humble CB500 twin, which a year later would have a race series of its own. Thing is, there doesn't seem to be a rider on it – just a Frank Thomas boot and a bit of a leg.
As we straighten up for Starkey's Straight I accelerate past this ‘ghost bike' and realise it's little Leon Haslam: Leon Haslam who has stuffed me up the inside at Coppice. Of course Leon out-brakes me into The Esses and I don't see him again.
At the end of that session we go back to the outer paddock to refuel and I follow Leon – who has to park right next to the kerb on which the pump is located, as he can't get his feet on the floor. Still smarting from being beaten by a mere kid, I raise my visor and say: “Leon! How old are you now mate?” ‘I'm 13. You were in my way a bit there, so I went past you,' comes the answer.
What can I say but: “Well, I hope you get acne you cheeky little git!” No, I wasn't the first person to be made to look slow by ‘The Pocket Rocket' that day – or any others.
Leon, son of Ron and Ann really was only going to end up doing one thing, wasn't he? And do it as well as dad. Let's go back in time.
ROCKET RON ON: Becoming a dad.
I think I was 20 when I started seeing Ann – she had a boyfriend then and she was about 16 when she came to the TT with us. I was a racer, so I was seeing other girls too – racing was my number one thing in life, to be honest – even if I knew she was very special.
At Oulton Park one day Ann told me she was pregnant, I was happy, but she felt she might get in the way, so to speak, and she went down to London to get out of the way.
Time apart really made me realise how much she meant to me, and then Leon was born in Ealing Hospital. I went down and met them both and I changed – I was no longer a selfish racer. From then on, if I went racing then Ann and Leon came with me – we were Team Haslam!
ROCKET RON ON: Becoming ‘The Rocket!’
I think it was Fred Clarke, the legendary commentator who called me that first and it was at Donington Park, maybe 1983, 1984, sometime around then. Before 1987, you'd start beside your bike, and bump start it, then swing a leg over and go. I always made sure my bike would start by pushing harder and running faster than the others! I never tried to fire the bike up first – others did – instead I waited a while and then did it. It was all about clutch control for me. Often I could make up for a bad grid position… I think Randy did examine how I was doing it all at one point: either way the ‘Rocket Ron' name stuck and I loved it!
ROCKET RON ON: ‘Fast’ Freddie Spencer
I was always chasing Freddie, to be honest. I once asked him about his braking markers for a particular track and he said he didn't have any. That was crazy, really… he did it all on pure instinct and feel. His talent was incredible – other things helped, of course! You may not get the same tyres as Freddie and the new parts would go to him first – at one point I'd see Freddie really thrashing his engines and I just couldn't do that, but later I found out that he was getting the fresh engines and I'd get his old ones! I'm not moaning, as – at the time – Freddie was on the three cylinder and still beating the fours.
I remember at Assen one year he didn't show up for practice despite the track changing from the previous season. Honda went mad, but all Freddie did was go to the truck, get his bike out and – without changing any settings on it – he went and broke the lap record. Amazing…
ROCKET RON ON: Being a ‘racing dad’…
I did everything I could to put Leon off racing, if I'm honest! I knew he had to really want to do it for himself – no one else. I didn't want him doing it ‘for me' so to speak. So, when he was doing schoolboy motocross, he had to ask me to go out on the bike, to show me he wanted it. Of course he had some bad injuries doing it – the second one he'd won the championship and was so badly injured he was flown back from Ireland by helicopter. I told him to concentrate on football after that, but he wouldn't give up, he asked his mum to ask me to carry on so I did, and the rest is history, but there have been some tough times for us both.
One of those that comes to my mind is his time on that Italjet 125cc machine in Grands Prix. It seized so many times. None of that was his fault, but to watch your son trying to keep his confidence up and see him have to throw a leg over that bike. At Suzuka, I'm standing back in the garage and not allowed to do much, it's a supposed factory team and yet this 125cc two-stroke detonates and eats the piston and seizes up. The red light is on permanent: this is a warning light about imminent seizure. To stop worrying Leon, the technician's way of sorting it out was to put some tape over the light…it's hard to watch your son go through that. The worst thing in the paddock can be ‘dads'. I'm one and yet
I've also seen them all! I'm still his dad, so I can see why some teams want to keep me out of the way. You have to step back so far and let things happen. And that is just so hard when you have all my experience. With some teams I'm just a dad, but at Suzuka I saw all that and knew it would seize up – which it did…
THE POCKET ROCKET ON: Tough love!
I lost two championships thanks to injury
– the first, when the femur came through the skin, all I could think about was the championship I lost. When I did it the following year in Ireland, I really couldn't believe it. I was sat in hospital with nine other kids who'd crashed that weekend – and the doctors really didn't want to bother with us, as – after all – what parents (in their minds) let their kids do this to themselves? The injuries were bad but I figured this was normal when racing! When my dad told me he didn't want to take me racing the next year, I was angry: he told me it was because of money. I was like: ‘thanks a bunch dad!' Mum came into the hospital the next day and was our mediator really. I know she didn't want to see me racing but she knew I wanted to. I told her: ‘Tell dad I will go racing on my own…' I understand why my dad tried to put me off, really…
THE POCKET ROCKET ON: Grands Prix…
I used to be schooled by Toni Mang's wife, in the paddock, so that would probably mean my first memories of the Grands Prix were probably my dad's Elf Honda days. I guess I couldn't have been more than about four. I haven't got memories of my dad racing, really, but just general feelings from the paddock and I think everyone used to have more of a laugh then. I used to hang around in Alex Barros' motorhome a fair bit when I was younger, when he and my dad were at Cagiva. We used to play computer games together.
During my time racing in Grands Prix, you're racing the best people in the world and you need the whole package. You can't lack in any area and I had just gone from 14 to 15 onto that Italjet and Dorna really wanted to have a British rider: this was a great opportunity in just my third year of racing. As a bike it was nowhere near the level of the others. I had something like 15 races and I broke down in 11 of them – and only scored a few points. The team had its own issues but it was a big opportunity. It did mean that I lost some confidence and so I came back to the UK in BSB 125cc racing against the likes of Chaz Davies and Casey Stoner and won all four races and that builds the confidence back up…
Leon's done a bit of the Isle of Man course in a hire car: he was 12 or 13 years old at the time. Ann nearly had a heart attack as he was driving! We got onto the mountain section and there's no roads getting onto it and I'm driving, but as soon as we hit the mountain section we swapped over. I knew it pretty well, we're going quite quick – but he's backing off and I'm telling him to keep it flat out and he did. Ann's screaming in the back… she thought two bikes came past us, she saw two helmets – one of the helmets fell in front of the car and she's screaming thinking someone's had an accident and lost their head. What it was, it was a sidecar with the passenger hanging out of the chair! So there you go…
THE POCKET ROCKET ON: The Isle of Man…
I think when dad raced there and it was a world championship, you got factory rides off the back of it. For the last 20-30 years it's not really been that way. Instead you've got people going over there who are very passionate about the event and that's great to see. I head over to watch and enjoy it whenever I can, that and The North West 200 too. I pop over, play a bit of golf and watch the racing. I know the likes of Peter Hickman, Ian Hutchinson and many others. I think today if you're a good, fast short circuit rider it lends itself to the TT. Before, the level of riders on the road circuits wasn't as high, so they wouldn't do so well at national level on short circuits. Now, the TT'S demands are such that if you're a good, fast short circuit rider you can do well at the TT. Joey raced the course… he won at aged 50. At the IOM you race the course, on short circuits it's the limits of the tyres and the bike.
ROCKET RON ON: Moving riders on…
The thing that Leon didn't get, but which I did, was that I started in club level. This means you can win and you can get it in your head that you are among the best. So I had all the Mallory and Cadwells and Snettertons under my belt before moving up and moving up (eventually) to doing international races at the likes of Daytona. For Leon he just kept moving up as quickly as possible – he never had a chance to sit and think that he was the best in a class, he was off doing other, bigger things immediately. Looking back, I'd still put Leon through things as fast as possible. I'm proud of him and what he's done.
ROCKET RON ON: Pepsi or Coke?
When I rode for Pepsi Suzuki in 1989 Kevin Schwantz and I rarely spoke! Unfortunately I'd had a decade or so with Honda so the transition was pretty difficult, even if the team wanted to do well. On the Elf you'd use flowing lines, while – on the Suzuki RGV500, you'd do a ‘Schwantz' and rush into the corner and then try spinning the rear out of it. I felt that the team was clearly built around Schwantz – which I guess was fair enough, as he was winning. I do recall speaking to my mechanics about the bike and wandering off… only to think of something else and head back: only to find the mechanics taking the mickey out of my accent while laughing to Kevin about it. I was disgusted, really, although I never had a problem with Kevin himself. And we both liked our guns!
ROCKET RON ON: Being TOO nice…
Yeah, okay… people always levelled this one at me. If I remember some of my teammates – most of whom I really got on with – think of Wayne Gardner, a typical Australian and a lovely bloke, but always telling people he was going to be world champion. But – he was! Kevin Schwantz often had his own ‘moods' with his team and was often a bit full of himself – but then both became great champions in their own right.
ROCKET RON ON: Cagiva
I met Claudio and Gianfranco Castiglioni and realised they were so enthusiastic about racing and that no expense was being spared – I liked them instantly! I was back to being in an almost family atmosphere with that team – even if the bike had its own issues, one of which ultimately led to me losing one of my fingers!
Now, steering on the Suzuki had been the best thing about that bike – but then getting on the Cagiva, it was like it was the complete opposite! I tried making lots of suggestions which – in a way – didn't go down too well, which was a shame considering the experience I had by then, 1990… Randy Mamola of course was one of my teammates by then. He was a multiple runner-up in the 500cc class and I'd been 4th in the world twice, but I think by then we both knew our chances of winning the title were up – it didn't stop Randy from partying or enjoying himself though. I respected Randy by this time.
I recall when we both started he always seemed like a typical cocky American – never shy of telling people he was better than them. By the time we were both at Cagiva, he'd changed and turned himself around and spent a lot of time raising money for Riders For Health – I respected that. Alex Barros was our other team-mate and so young, he spent a lot of time with Leon! Alex was just enjoying his time racing motorcycles and I tried to take him under my wing: he even came over to the farm and went through our gym assault course and I saw him launched off the top of my neice's horse!
I was surprised when Cagiva got Eddie Lawson to ride for them in 1991. I heard he rode the bike for two days and told them to ‘cut the front end off of the thing.' Just what I had wanted them to do! Alex later told me: ‘It's a completely different bike now!' Shame didn't get another year then, but by that time was coming home to the UK.
ROCKET RON ON: The JPS Norton…
I thought that coming back home to the UK to race would also give me more time to work the 37-acre farm – we'd just got some deer and stags and it was about time we did something with the land we had. Farming was much harder than the bike world! While we adjusted to farming, I also adjusted to the Rotary engine JPS Norton – in a team run by my old Honda Britain boss Barry Symmons. Many people said it was a beast of a bike and so powerful – it was, but not in the low rpm
range. Also, as someone who'd been useful on the brakes all his career – suddenly I'd find the bike ‘pushing on' in corners. I couldn't get the thing to stop, and I soon realised that – even on a closed throttle – the rear was pushing the front. It meant that I had to use the back brake for the first time ever.
Racing in the UK may have meant the bikes were down a level or two (our first Norton clutch was from an Hillman Imp!) but the racing was just as fierce! I had some good times and wins on the Norton and it was such a popular bike – I finished 2nd overall in the series on the bike to Rob Mcelnea's Yamaha. That year I also broke my leg pretty badly when motocrossing with Leon and his friends. Leon and pals were happily jumping this ditch but I did it wrong and my toes literally ended up touching kneecap. I had to put it right myself before Leon came over, asking: ‘Are you sure you've broken your leg dad?' I just about managed a smile when I told him I was sure that I had…trevor Nation – my JPS team mate took me to hospital in his van.
I broke my leg again at almost 170mph at Snetterton when the Norton landed on me. That was the end of my racing really – although I did do the Triumph Speed Triple Challenge where lots of people cheated – which was part of the fun, really!
ROCKET RON ON: Developing British riders
We ran Team Great Britain for a while and of course we are always looking towards the next world champion from Britain: it's the hardest problem. Money is everything and in England/britain there just isn't the sponsorship, we just don't seem to get the sponsors you see in Spain and Italy. They've also got academies bringing young riders through. We are starting to see that with the Talent Cups and the Red Bull Rookies, but you still see our riders being pushed aside.
I'm proud of what we did over the years. Not just with Team Great Britain – formed with the help of the wonderful Robert Fearnall, but with what I've done too with other riders. I've helped John Reynolds, James Haydon, Nick Hopkins, the late Karl Harris and many more. We needed £250,000 to run Team GB, but it was difficult to get the money, really. Ann worked so hard on this
– it was as much her thing as mine, maybe more? She worked her fingers to the bone to
make it happen and it did. I have to say that when I remember James Haydon, he was a real grafter and had a heart of gold – he was always happy to help on the farm. He was always so competitive with Nick in the gym, too. Both would be to the point of collapse after a session! I sometimes wish James had stayed with Team GB for a few more years.
THE POCKET ROCKET ON: Rocket Ron…
Mum has been a part of all our success and has worked so hard for us all, without her neither dad nor me would be where we are today or achieved so much. Thinking about my dad, for me it's not about his achievements or being recognised with the likes of an MBE or whatever: it is dad's undeniable passion for racing. Even now he's up at 5am to sort some bikes out, whether it was making something for a CB500 when we had the school, or fixing a bike that's been crashed (mine or otherwise!) His whole career and our family has always been about racing and that passion – if I've got half that passion at 60 odd years of age I'll be a very lucky and one very happy man…