Dave and Norman have been keeping company with me on Skype since the New Year and they have been keeping you up to date with how I am progressing too. It’s
great to see them and they give me such a lift that I feel there’s nothing wrong with me. We talk about our racing days and kid each other about the fun we had on and off the race tracks. Dave is of course my
greatest FAN really but, Dave, mate, the idea of you beating me, that’s funny! Well, (thinks) I suppose you may have done once – uhm – or twice.
It’s time for me to join Dave and Norman to add to the JPN Facebook page.
Thank you, everyone, for your good wishes – and for keeping memories alive of the great days of John Player Norton. It sounds it bit over ambitious but my mission was to help to bring glory back to Norton – and
to be a part of that great manufacturer after racing. I have quite a lot of time on my hands now so I suppose my mind wanders sometimes imagining some sort of connection between my crash in 1974 being synonymous
with Norton Villiers crash a few months later and a short time after my illness in 2020 Norton crashed again.
What gets me gloomy is when all too often I find myself remembering the stupid times when I ran out of petrol. Three times. And always big races, and always when I was leading a race or, as with John Cooper at
Hutchinson 100 at Brands Hatch in 1966, I was overtaking him. I ran out of petrol after overtaking Malcolm Uphill in the Production TT in 1970. And having led from the first lap I ran out of petrol on the last
lap of the Silverstone John Player Grand Prix in 1973 on the JPN Monocoque.
I have many memories of races I did win but, funnily enough, it is that last one mentioned at Silverstone that was the most enjoyable and satisfactory for me. Silverstone has always been one of the world’s best
race circuits with fast bends and long straights. I only raced there three times but it was one of my favourites. The 1973 race against many of the UK’s and USA’s best riders on bikes with 90 or 100 horsepower
was, for me, a test of whether my belief that the 70 horsepower in a better motorcycle could win; was the John Player Norton a better motorcycle? As I led the second of the two races for most of the race I
believe it was. It was one of my best races and because I ran out of fuel on the last lap and didn’t finish nobody remembers it. But to spend time in that psycho-physical zone of perfect control, riding the bike
which on that day was one of the best bikes in the world was an unforgettable experience.
More later.
Click here for a video of the efforts of the JPN team’s assault on the 1973 Isle of Man TT.
