Aboard a specially prepared Ducati 900SS, Mike “The Bike” Hailwood stuns the motorcycling world when he emerges from 11 years of self-imposed retirement to win the Formula One TT at the Isle of Man.
A race he had first ridden as an 18 year-old in 1958, he was told he was out of touch with the sport and its developments, an "out of shape, pot-bellied" 38 year-old, they said he was wasting his time, he no longer belonged there. They said wrong. His victorious return to 'The Island' has been described as one of the most emotional moments in motorcycling history.
Mike Hailwood won nine motorcycle World Championships between 1961 and 1967, then turned to Formula 1 car racing, following in the tracks of John Surtees, with whose cars he became European Formula 2 Champion and began his Formula 1 career. In time he might well have added a Formula 1 World Championship to his list of achievements, but his motor racing career ended abruptly in 1974 when he crashed his McLaren on Germany's daunting Nurburgring.
Disabled by his leg injuries, he retired to New Zealand, where he eventually grew bored of the quiet, slow-paced life, and in 1978, he was back at the Isle of Man, the scene of so many of his earlier triumphs.
Mike Hailwood won nine World Championships, including four 500cc titles in succession. In six years he won a fairly unprecedented seventy-four Grand Prix's. He won in each of the 250cc/350cc/500cc classes, including winning GP's in all three classes in the same season, a record five times. Five times he won all three classes in one day! He won the Isle of Man fourteen times. He set the one hour top speed world record in 1964 at Daytona. He came out of retirement at the age of 38 and won the Isle of Man two years in succession. Called by many, "The greatest motorcycle racer ever."
Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk
