BTM TALK, ‘FAST’ FREDDIE SPENCER – 23RD MAY
I
n recent years we have had a few famous motorcyclists come to Brooklands for a BTM
Classic Talk interview with Steve Parrish but there was something different about ‘Fast’ Freddie Spencer. Last year Ian Hutchinson had explained in his interview that most motor bike racers did it because they had rubbish jobs in the first place. This wasn’t true of quietly-spoken American Spencer however who was brought up in a comfortable middle-class family – his parents ran a chain of convenience stores – and he achieved decent grades at school. Whilst Freddie didn’t have quite the ‘rags to
riches’ story, he did have to put in the hard miles to reach the top just like anyone else. When he was two years old his parents moved to a property built on a two-acre plot in the country. The inten- tion was to build a second house on half the land to sell on, but somehow that never happened. Thus by the age of four Freddie was riding a motorcycle round the yard. He adopted two rules; never ride when there was nobody at home and always wear a helmet. On an occasion when he broke the first of these rules he had a serious accident and his mother banned him from riding for a week. In 1973 Freddie saw Kenny Roberts ride and
he realised that Roberts rode differently compared to his fellow competitors. Bike riding rewards understanding of how the bikes work, and Fred- die continued to hone his skills in the yard at home. His first race was at Daytona on an RD100 Yamaha. Unfortunately he finished last because although he was good in left-hand corners he was much weaker with those that turned right. But it was a start and soon Freddie and his father were driving all over the country at weekends so that the youngster could compete, indeed in one year they covered 140,000 miles to get to 40 events. Gradually Spencer improved and started win-
ning more and more races. By 1977, when he was 15, he managed to get a sponsor that took him to the next level and by the following year he got a ride with Honda America. In 1980 the US versus Britain Transatlantic Trophy races at Brands Hatch brought the 18-year-old Freddie to the attention of a much wider audience. He won two races, beating the likes of Barry Sheene and Kenny Roberts. He put his success down to American riders having to ride on all sorts of tracks and
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News
‘Fast’ Freddie Spencer (left) with Steve Parrish (Gareth Tarr).
therefore being able to learn new circuits quickly. They were also used to riding on dirt tracks, making them skilful at sliding the bike. From this series he remembers being given ‘a really cool jacket’ and a Range Rover to drive round in whilst in Europe. In 1981 he was riding in both the American
Superbike and the Grand Prix series. His year in Europe wasn’t very successful, there being lots of issues with the bike. When visiting Belgium he saw people eat beans with tomatoes at breakfast for the first time – an innocent abroad! The following year he was promoted to the works Honda team and he finished third in the 500cc World Championship and then, in 1983, his 16th in racing, he was World Champion. By the time of the Dutch GP in June the subsequent year it was clear he wouldn’t retain his title and his thoughts turned to the following year in which he decided to participate in both the 250cc and 500cc championships and he was to win both titles. Reflecting on his period in GP racing, Spencer
described how quickly the bikes increased in speed, for example losing 10 seconds per lap at Zolder between 1982 and 85. One significant advance was the switch to radial tyres. In 83 and 84 Honda had concentrated on the 500cc
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