World Champion Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, Barry Steven Frank Sheene MBE dies.
A larger than life character, Sheene enjoyed a following wholly disproportionate to the popularity of his sport.
Even people who did not know the difference between a fairing and a footpeg were touched by the glamour that surrounded Sheene; it was said that, at the height of his career, his name on the racing program was worth an additional 10,000 spectators to the race organizers. This was partly due to his engaging personality; but principally it was a tribute to his devil-may-care attitude, and to the grace he showed when suffering for his sport.
Sheene first started to race in 1968, winning his first races at Brands Hatch riding his father Frank’s 125cc and 250cc Bultacos.
At the Daytona 200 in 1975 he suffered multiple injuries when a blown rear tire caused him to have a spectacular crash, (one of many in the career of Barry Sheene), at 175mph. He later recalled: "I could feel the skin peeling off my back for 200 yards." He broke his left thigh, his right wrist, broke six ribs and a collarbone.
When he recovered consciousness in hospital, his first words were: "Nurse, you wouldn't by any chance 'ave a fag would you?" Later he commented, "Had I been a racehorse, they would have shot me."
On a side note, the obscure Eric Idle song "Mr. Sheene" which describes "Mr. Sheene's riding machine" appears to be about Barry Sheene. It was released as a B-side of the 1978 single "Ging Gang Goolie" and is credited as released by the Rutles-offshoot duo "Dirk and Stig."
Barry Sheene was born at Holborn, London, on September 11 1950. His father Frank, a retired motorcycle racer himself, presented his son with a Ducati 50cc when he turned five. At school Barry was told by his geography teacher, "It is no use you thinking life revolves around motorcycling. Motorcycles are never going to make you a living." With that thought he quit school at 15 and found work as a motorcycle delivery driver.
Sheene first started to race in 1968, winning his first races at Brands Hatch riding his father Frank’s 125cc and 250cc Bultacos.
He became the British 125cc champion at 20, and finished second in the World Championships for that class a year later. Sheene won the newly formed Formula 750 European Championship for Suzuki in 1973.
At the Daytona 200 in 1975 he suffered multiple injuries when a blown rear tire caused him to have a spectacular crash, (one of many in the career of Barry Sheene), at 175mph. He later recalled: "I could feel the skin peeling off my back for 200 yards." He broke his left thigh, his right wrist, broke six ribs and a collarbone.
When he recovered consciousness in hospital, his first words were: "Nurse, you wouldn't by any chance 'ave a fag would you?" Later he commented, "Had I been a racehorse, they would have shot me."
Sheene would recover and only seven weeks later he would win his first Grand Prix.
In the 1976 season, he won five 500cc Grand Prix races, bringing him the World Championship. He took the Championship again in the 1977 season with six victories.
Sheene's battle with Kenny Roberts at the 1979 British Grand Prix at Silverstone has been cited as one of the greatest motorcycle Grand Prix races of the 1970's. After the 1979 season, he left the Heron-Suzuki factory team, believing that he was receiving inferior equipment to his team-mates. He shifted to a privateer on a Yamaha machine, but soon started receiving works equipment. In 1981, Kenny Roberts was the reigning World 500cc Champion for the third time, and Barry Sheene, now on a competitive Yamaha, was determined to regain the championship. Ironically, while Sheene and Roberts battled all season they let Suzuki riders Marco Lucchinelli of Italy and American Randy Mamola beat them for the top two spots. Roberts finished third and Sheene fourth for the 1981 championship.
Barry Sheene was a colorful, exuberant character who used his good looks, grin and London accent to good effect in self-promotion, and combined with an interest in business was one of the first riders to make a shit-load of money from product endorsements. He is credited with boosting the appeal of motorcycle racing into the realm of the mass marketing media. Sheene was a superstar, famous beyond the boundaries of his sport. He loved women (he claimed to have lost his virginity when he was 14 on a snooker table in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields), he enjoyed a drink, and was rarely seen without a Gauloise (cigarette) between his lips - at one point he had a hole bored in his racing helmet to enable him to take a drag on the starting line immediately before a race, he lived a 700-year-old manor house in Surrey once owned by the actress Gladys Cooper, he was chosen by Faberge to promote Brut aftershave lotion, he drove a Rolls-Royce.
Even journalists were not immune to his charm: Tina Brown, interviewing him in 1978, found Sheene "small in build, sparky in manner; the kind of boy your mother would hate at first and end up deliriously darning his underwear."
Even journalists were not immune to his charm: Tina Brown, interviewing him in 1978, found Sheene "small in build, sparky in manner; the kind of boy your mother would hate at first and end up deliriously darning his underwear."
In 1978 he was appointed MBE, the Queen telling him at his investiture, "Now you be careful, young man."
In July 2002, at the age of 51, Barry Sheene was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and stomach. Refusing to submit himself to conventional chemotherapy treatments, Sheene preferred to rely on a diet of herbal teas and raw vegetables. "I know it's off the wall," he remarked, "but I'll do it my way - and if it doesn't work, that's my funeral."
He died peacefully surrounded by his family at a hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast in 2003, aged 52.
