The best motorcycle racers of all time

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The best motorcycle racers of all time
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Motorsport

The best motorcycle racers of all time

The best racing drivers of all time
The heroes of the MOTORRAD editors

Of course you can just count. World title, record laps, driver salaries – whatever. But mostly it’s completely different things that make a certain racing driver a very personal hero. A small selection of the MOTORRAD editors from very different eras.

Stefan Kaschel

07/28/2014

Freddie Spencer


The best motorcycle racers of all time


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The starting number 19 is still Freddie Spencer’s trademark today. The 52-year-old now deliberately shares his stored motorcycle knowledge with normal motorcyclists on courses on the legendary French GP track Paul Ricard, where from 1983 to 1985 he won four World Championship races in the 250 and 500 cc classes.

Andreas Schulz, freelancer:

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Freddie Spencer a motorcycle hero? With only three world championship titles, where a Toni Mang has already won five, a Mike Hailwood nine, a Giacomo Agostini 15? Yes, but. Not because in 1983 Spencer was the first to win the world championship for Honda in the premier class up to 500 cc. Not because he became the 500cc and 250cc champion in 1985 and is still the only driver who managed that in one year. But because he did it in a very unique way that I had never seen a racing driver do before. Freddie Spencer invented data recording. He couldn’t have known that, there was no such thing at the time. But he already passed on a lot of the information that is teased out of a racing motorcycle with countless sensors and a lot of computer technology to his technology crew back then – thanks to his mental abilities, thanks to the gift of being able to concentrate extremely and remembering a lot of impressions . After a training session, he was able to run the entire session again in his mind’s eye. “Like a movie,” says Spencer, “but in which I could also remember the movements of the motorcycle and my reactions to every scene.” It was not easy in 1985 in particular. “I had to develop the NSR 250 and NSR 500 for Honda,” recalls Spencer, “the training sessions usually took place one after the other – I came into the pits on the 250 and drove out again on the 500.” Sorting memories and satisfying the Honda engineers’ thirst for information, the information on the 250 and 500 precisely separated.

It wasn’t something Spencer had learned anywhere – he was always like that. “When I was four years old, I rode a motorcycle on the farm for the first time,” he looks back, “and I still remember how I reflected in bed at night, what I had done with the bike during the day and what I did the next day wanted to do with him – sliding, trying out inclines and so on. ”At first it was his father Freddie Sr. who used the information of his offspring to screw him together victorious motorcycles for all imaginable American racing series. When Freddie sen. When he reached his limits in 1977, he chose the ingenious Erv Kanemoto as his technician. Erv looked after Freddie until he won the double world title in 1985. “Having Erv was a gift,” says Freddie Spencer today, “the man has only ridden a motorcycle in first gear at most once in his life. But he understood every word I said to him after a training session. ”And thanks to Freddie’s special talent, he was able to make the right decisions about the set-up of the machine. And then Freddie won. Pretty reliable.

Rearview mirror PDF: Portrait of Freddie Spencer (MOTORRAD 08/1983)

Phil Read


The best motorcycle racers of all time


mps photo studio

Phil Read went through several phases during his career in which motorcycle racing changed dramatically. Determination and enormous technical expertise helped him cope with it – up to the advanced age of 39 as a racing driver.

Ralf Schneider, editor:

If we were known personally, I probably wouldn’t find him likeable. One of my friends, who knows him personally, hinted at it. Still, I admire Phil Read for his achievements as a motorcycle racer. Not because of the seven world titles he has won. But because he has won it like a delicate but stubborn plant that grows up to the light in the midst of dominant neighboring plants. His opponents had more talent, like Bill Ivy, or more money and talent, like Mike Hailwood. Or they lived and rode in a rarely privileged relationship with their motorcycle manufacturer – like Jim Redman with Honda or Giacomo Agostini with MV Agusta. I can well understand that Phil Read did not always act like a gentleman when competing with these racing titans and often hid his insecurity and tension behind arrogant behavior. Sooner or later he would beat them all in fair tackles, and he did that thanks to his wonderful versatility.

Coming from single-cylinder club racers like a BSA Goldstar and GP racers like the Norton Manx, after a brief interlude on four-cylinder four-stroke Gileras, he played an important role in the development of the 125 and 250 cc racing two-stroke engines from Yamaha. After Yamaha’s exit from Grand Prix racing, he won his fourth title on a privately owned production Yamaha and then switched to MV Agusta, where after the era of the three-cylinder four-stroke engine he again gave important impulses for the development of the new and final MV four-cylinder -Racing machines and won two more titles. And before he gave up Grand Prix racing in the middle of the season in 1976, probably because of a burnout syndrome, he had come out on top again in the four-cylinder two-stroke Suzuki. There is no doubt that Phil Read was not only able to ride a motorcycle with great ability, he also understood his many, very different motorcycles better than anyone else.

Toni Mang

Lothar Kutschera, freelancer:

About Toni Mang, I wasn’t just impressed by his driving class. He also had a clear view of technology and was able to screw. He also had a congenial tinkerer at his side in Sepp Schlogl. At the beginning of the 80s, the two specials from the Bavarian Ammersee had their bright green Kawasaki racers and the competition in the 250 and 350 classes under control. Mang was able to win four world titles at the time, in 1981 he even managed two in one season. The double Toni was not only celebrated by the racing insiders, the general public was also enthusiastic about his successes, and the sports journalists voted him Sportsman of the Year – an honor that apart from Mang has only been given to two other motorcycle athletes: Schorsch Meier and Werner Haas.

Toni Mang not only enjoyed the triumphs, he also accepted unpleasant challenges. In 1986 he agreed to start at the ADAC-MOTORRAD-Allround-Race in Hockenheim, a forerunner of today’s Supermoto races, in which drivers from various disciplines should determine their champions. Not knowing which crisp off-road passages and jumps should be integrated into the course. Toni Mang fought bravely with the unfamiliar terrain and the unfamiliar Cross Honda, but – like speedway star Egon Muller, by the way – didn’t have the slightest chance. The following year, Toni was back on top as the 250cc Grand Prix winner in the Motodrom. And at the end of that season, the 38-year-old Bavarian was able to crown his career with the fifth world title, an achievement that is hardly imaginable in today’s GP sport.

After his resignation, Toni Mang staged another great spectacle in Hockenheim. At the 1989 Grand Prix he was supposed to chauffeur Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl for a while on a BMW K1. The plan was to drive up and down the pit lane or the start-finish straight. But the idea of ​​having to turn around in front of the crowded stands with the not exactly light-footed BMW and the heavyweight Chancellor made the short-legged Mang sweat of fear on his forehead. Clever as he is, Toni solved the problem in his own way: on the spur of the moment, he turned a lap around the entire course – a horror scenario for the security officers, a lot of fun for the fans.

Rearview mirror PDF: Toni Mang’s factory Kawasaki (MOTORRAD 07/1978)

Gustav Reiner

Werner Koch, editor:

When a boxer BMW shredded the valve covers around the corner at the Glemseck motorcycle meeting point, everyone knew: Gustav from Bietigheim is back. That was in the early 1970s and Gustav Reiner Betonbauer. In the winter of 1976 he was in Werner Hiller’s motorcycle workshop in Stuttgart, looking for a racing fairing. “I need it for my Honda CB 500, with which I now drive motorcycle races” “With a Honda? Ha, Gustav, you can go on a scooter right away. ”Four weeks later he was on the podium in his first hill climb – the beginning of a very changeable career. Changeable because Gustav, the man who makes sparks barefoot, had an incurable allergy to racing bikes that drove in front of him. With the result that Gustav all too often eliminated himself. Even with mass falls in the junior cup, you could bet that Gustav would peel himself out of the bale of straw as soon as the dust had cleared. He developed another allergy to ambulances that wanted to maneuver him into the hospital after his flights. On the Avus 1978, Gustav literally fled from the racing doctors with my help and crawled into his van with a shimmering blue-green upper body: “Mini, close the doors, they’ll take me to the hospital otherwise.” Rightly so, his hand was broken several times.

His spectacular falls are one side of what the public dubbed “Kamikaze-Gustl”. The other was the meticulous accuracy with which he built his racing machines. The lights in the workshop tent were on until late at night when the mechanics put the motorcycle together according to the master’s instructions. Even the position and the angle of the handlebar stubs were neatly measured and adjusted symmetrically. “You can’t go fast with a” crooked “motorcycle”, Gustav convinced his crew of the overtime.

If everything went right then Gustav couldn’t be stopped. In the World Championships, the private driver gained the highest recognition not only from his sponsors with respectable top ten placements, brilliant lap times and almost unbelievable cornering speeds. World champions like Barry Sheen, Jon Ekerold, Dieter Braun or Kenny Roberts also paid the daring fellow from Bietigheim the greatest respect. And many regret that Gustav never got the chance to get a factory machine. What really spurred him on was to overtake Honda factory driver Wayne Gardner of all people at the World Championship round in Hockenheim in the Opel curve. A typical Gustav Reiner campaign that his friend and racing doctor Dr. Christoph Scholl also liked to refer to it as suicide mode.

Gustav did not make the big breakthrough. After several terrible falls, he withdrew not only from racing but also from the public. Gustav Reiner died of heart failure in 2007, almost 20 years after the end of his career. I was not surprised that almost all sponsors and racing drivers from the Gustav Reiner era accompanied him on his last journey. Because Gustav was one of us – and that’s why he was my racing driver in the 80s.

Egon Muller

Thorsten Dentges, editor:

It was probably he who made me a motorcyclist. Because: All Spielstrasse children wanted to be Egon Muller. Me too of course. And it went like this: With bicycles tinkered together from bulky garbage parts, reduced to the most minimalist – of course without brakes – we went round the orphaned schoolyard in the afternoon. To the left, of course. Four drivers in front of the imaginary start gate. My bike was a Schaschama, the others had Honda-Honda or Zubuki, popular motorcycle brands that you knew as an eight-year-old – maybe there was a clever one among us who had a Jawa, who knows. After the starting gun from a Kaubau alarm revolver: full throttle, i.e. 100 percent pedal force. In the first corner after 40 meters, two of us were mostly already on our flaps, whoever was the first to lap the oval got further. The overall winner was Egon Muller, our great role model.

In 1978 Egon Muller became world long track champion, a year later German speedway champion. When the railway sports circus moved to my hometown Vechta in Lower Saxony at the time, the small town was turned upside down. Vaddern, a well-behaved Volvo driver who normally covered his ears when a motorcycle drove by, went to the Reiterwaldstadion for a track race once a year with Muddern, my brother and me. We got french fries, cornetto nuts, key rings and toy motorcycles. Something like that shapes – and, in my opinion, it is also very valuable educationally from today’s perspective. The smell of burnt methanol and castor oil, trampled turf, and earth thrown up by cleats was in the air. And it’s still in my nose today. Star of the events back then: basically Egon Muller. The crazy bastard didn’t miss a thing, fought down the Russians, Czechs, Swedes and English. The most daring overtaking maneuvers, the most violent drifts, the most beautiful winning wheelies – Egon again and again! Since the paddock was quite open, we Steppkes got pretty close to the wild guy with straw-blond mane. We mimicked his gait, played how he got on the machine and copied his posture when he started. I had dug out my snow overall – at 30 degrees in summer – and put on a cheap plastic police helmet from the fair to look like my racing driver idol. I always gave everything on the Schulhofbahn. Sweaty, scarred with blood, half dead from the exertion, I was often the first to roll across the finish line – I was Egon!

Pit Beirer

Peter Mayer, editor:

Pit Beirer did not have a resting heart rate. At least not one that could have been rated from a sporting point of view. Open your eyes – and the young man’s personal to-do list got the blood of the young man from Ludwigshafen on Lake Constance pumping at lightning speed as a teenager in the early morning hours. Because there was one single thought that drove him: He wanted to be motocross world champion. For this he was ready to give everything. Strengthening fitness for five hours a day in the gym – of course. Moving out of their homes at the age of 17 to live near training tracks – not an issue for the self-sacrificing teenager. To found a fan club in order to be able to shoulder financially the entry into the World Cup at all – an idea brilliantly concocted by the resourceful spirit. To put yourself in the right light with sponsors and in public – easy for the eloquent sun boy.

The effort was worth it. At 17, of all things, he achieved his first World Championship victory at the home GP, with factory contracts from Honda and Kawasaki. The private move to Monaco too. Only the big goal, the world championship, kept slipping out of his hands like a wet bar of soap. In 1999 only a touch was missing. Vice world champion in the 250cc class. After all. In 2003 the disaster. On June 8th, Pit crashes at the World Cup in Bulgaria. The diagnosis: paraplegia. The tireless fighter’s legendary optimism is put to a cruel test – and wins. Four months later, the ex-crosser rolls behind a desk at KTM in his wheelchair for the first time. History repeats itself. Because again he gives full throttle. In record time he advanced to head of sport, knew how to gather the world’s best people, defeated the competition in all off-road disciplines and even brought Honda to its knees in the Moto3 World Championship. Only his resting heart rate, which he will probably still not be able to measure.

Jim Redman

Thomas Schmieder, editor:

What a story: an English boy from poor, even harsh backgrounds emigrates to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and soon afterwards becomes the number one driver for a motorcycle manufacturer aspiring to become a world power: company boss Soichiro Honda personally worked on the racing machines of the exceptional driver Jim Redman. He won in the 125, 250, 350 and 500 classes. On many Grand Prix weekends, Jim drove as a three-time starter races in three classes, unimaginable today. Redman dominated all eight GP races in 1964 on the 350cc four-cylinder Honda.

What a life record: six TT victories on the Isle of Man, 1963, 1964 and 1965 each in the lightweight (250) plus junior class (350). Redman brings 46 GP victories, drives on the Solitude or the Sachsenring in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators. In 1962 and 1963 he was 250/350 double world champion, as well as second and third in the 125 cc class. In 1964 and 1965 there was still the 350 World Championship title. He was already a superstar by then, was allowed to drive Honda’s legendary 250cc six-cylinder racing machines alongside Mike Hailwood, and he also started on 500cc. But Jim always remained a racing driver from the people, a star you can touch.

He personally convinced me of this typical trait at the 2007 Thundersprint in England. This is a sprint race over 400 meters with three corners, start and finish are identical. Jim had problems with his hip from tripping over “a goddamn rug”. That is why he gratefully accepted the seat in the MOTORRAD VW bus from time to time. We became friends until Jim let the cat out of the bag: He still has to go to southern Germany for the next classical music event, whether we still have a place free? A racing driver of today will hardly ask such a question in 40 years’ time.

What an experience: A six-time world champion, the completely stunned photographer Hubert Hecker and I, sitting next to each other, drove 1000 kilometers in the VW bus. We even spent the night in the same cabin on the ferry. Hubert and I listened to Jim’s wonderful anecdotes from his eventful and moving life. How he fell in the pouring rain in Spa at 250 km / h in 1966. Once heard, you will never forget the end of your career. Gentleman Jim doesn’t have to play himself in the foreground. He’s so present too. It is no art to see the six-time world champion live at one of his numerous performances. But it’s a great pleasure!

Valentino Rossi


The best motorcycle racers of all time


2snap

Valentino Rossi wins MotoGP in Misano 2014.

Stefan Kaschel, editor:

There are people who don’t like Valentino. There are even people who literally hate him. They find his hair fashion impossible, his sideburns silly and deeply despise his extroversion. But I don’t know anyone with any expertise who doesn’t appreciate their performance as a racing driver. Nine world championship titles in all classes, whether 125 cc two-stroke, 500 cc GP rocket or MotoGP bolide. This is only possible with a lot of talent, a lot of will and a clever strategy. To put it in a nutshell: where Rossi was there was the finest material, but you have to earn it first. Wherever Rossi was, he was almost always number one on the team – but that’s not something that comes to mind either, it’s a question of talent and a high degree of ruthlessness. I only remember his infamous Jerez attack in 2005 in the target curve against team-mate Sete Gibernau. Then the adversary was jerked, jerky and rather rudely pushed off the racing line. Rossi’s motto at the time: I am the GP.

And that’s how he came along, the little sun king of the paddock. Until he made the first real mistake in his delusion. Rossi thought he could help Ducati as he had helped Yamaha. Maybe even become world champion in the first year. It was nothing, Rossi drove behind hopelessly in the wing-lined red racers. And only now – at the time of his greatest crisis – did the great racing driver and merciless strategist Valentino Rossi become a racing giant. Because he didn’t give up. Because he fought like no other. Because he fell – and got up again, believed in himself. Because he achieved what no one had expected him to do. Instead of saying goodbye honorable but sad and defeated, Rossi returned. And how!

Today Valentino is fighting on the front line again, at 35 he is part of a top quartet. Together with the youngest MotoGP world champion of all time, Marc Márquez. With one of the most complete racing drivers of all time, with Jorge Lorenzo. And with one of the most unfortunate racing drivers of all time, the untitled Dani Pedrosa. There has not been a stronger World Cup peak since Rainey, Schwantz and Doohan. Who knows, maybe he’ll still succeed in the really, really big coup. Rossi’s new contract runs until 2016. Then MotoGP will compete with standardized electronics and the current Honda lead may be a thing of the past. If Rossi were to become world champion again, he would definitely be the greatest racing driver of all time. For me it is already it, tenth title or not. The fact that it appears possible is a miracle – by the name of Valentino.

Ken Roczen


The best motorcycle racers of all time


KTM

In the stadium: Overall victory in the 2013 MX2 Supercross Championship.

Gert Thole, test chief

My friend Didi Lacher called me: “Come over there, take a look at the Junior Cup. There is a very small driver who is guaranteed to be a very big one. ”A German as a top crosser? Nowadays? Better than before Weil, Bauer, Lacher, Beirer? I do not think so. We don’t exactly have the best environment for young drivers here. Despite all my skepticism, I went to Tensfeld near Lubeck in 2005. A long way, only because of the little boy from Thuringia, just eleven years old. But it was worth it. They had to push blocks under his feet when he started to prevent him from falling over. Because actually it was much too small for the Suzuki. In contrast, the competitors were almost real men, strong young crossers from all over Europe. And then the little one canned almost all of them. I remember the big 30-meter table that only the bravest could manage: It was so high in the air that you could only see a huge helmet with two wheels on it. His sponsor and patron at the time, Bert Poensgen, drew a full-bodied schedule that would bring Ken to the top of the world in just a few years. And everyone prayed that the little one would grow, because as a child he was always smaller and skinny than his peers. But suddenly he grew in size and gained strength. Then everything went very quickly with the career.

Today you have to say: Bert Poensgen was right back then. Ken Roczen became German MX2 Champion in 2009 when he was 15 years old, in 2011 when he was just 17, he went to the USA in 2012 and mixed up cross superstars like Stewart, Dungey and Villopoto over there. He is currently leading the outdoor championship in the top 450 class. It is no exaggeration to say: He is only a tiny step away from being considered the best crosser in the world. A German! craziness!

Omobono Tenni


The best motorcycle racers of all time


mps photo studio

A wild bird: Omobono Tenni, born in 1905 in Tirano in Lombardy, was three times Italian champion and twice European champion with Moto Guzzi. He had a fatal accident in 1948 while training for the Swiss Grand Prix on the Bremgarten race track in Bern.

Michael Pfeiffer, Editor-in-Chief:

Even the first name seems bizarre to domestic ears: Omobono. His wild hairstyle looked even more bizarre to me. Didn’t this guy look like Marco Simoncelli’s ancestor? I discovered his photo in a book about Moto Guzzi. It quickly became clear to me: Omobono Tenni must have been a hero on two wheels. The Italian was the first non-British to win the TT on the Isle of Man. In 1937 he won with his 250cc Moto Guzzi despite a fall and a broken candle. The pilots had to drive seven laps back then. Tenni did it in a good three and a half hours with an average of 120.22 km / h. The British nicknamed him “The Black Devil” afterwards, and a radio reporter commented: “The news that I get from every part of the route is the same in one point: Tenni curves around the route so madly that doubts arise as to whether he finished the race in one go. “

He became a Moto Guzzi works rider through a Harakiri campaign in 1932: on his private Miller Balsamo, he overtook Guzzi works rider Pietro Ghersi on the last lap. True to his motto: “Always drive full tank, winning races is not enough for me.” Then he had the job. He won 47 times for Moto Guzzi. He never became a man of long speeches. He usually sent a telegram to his wife after a race: “First place, kisses, Tenni.” Cool, one would say today. He also drove car races – on a Maserati. It’s not really surprising that he was also pretty good at it.

After the war, at the age of 40, Tenni continued his racing. “I don’t stop until a faster guy comes,” he commented on his age. In 1947 he was again the 500 European champion. But as so often in the old days, his career came to an abrupt end. On July 1, 1948, Tenni crashed into a tree in Bern. He was very unlucky: He had switched from his brand new factory Guzzi to a training machine. But this had longer footrests, with which he touched down and was thrown out of the curve. A tragic end, just like that of Marco Simoncelli 63 years later. Tenni was a hero, no question about it. But whom the gods love …

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