Niall Mackenzie: The Autobiography. Stuart Barker

the Austrian GP in June, I finished fourteenth beating both Donnie McLeod and Alan Carter for the first time. It was really nice to finish because we’d had another three non-finishes in the last three GPs in Spain, Germany and Italy. It was also a few more quid in my pocket because there was prize money for all finishers. A win back then was worth about £3000 in the 250 class and about £6000 in the 500s but I was still a long way off that kind of cash. It’s a different system now as the team gets the prize money and they do with it what they will. But if a team now has two 500 riders having a good finish, they’ll get around £25,000.

      In the next four GPs I scored a sixteenth in Yugoslavia, fourteenth in Holland, had another DNF in Belgium and another fourteenth in France, then it was time for the big one – the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Obviously it was a big race for us, especially since my team was sponsored by the circuit we would be racing on! Talk about pressure. It was really wet for the race and I guess the pressure must have got to me because I only lasted four laps until I crashed out. Alan Carter, was leading the race by miles but then he fell off too at exactly the same spot as I did. It was cruel for both of us because I had been running in the top ten when I fell and Alan looked on for a home win.

      At the next round in Sweden however, I managed to score my first ever point in Grand Prix racing with tenth place. It turned out to be my only point of the year, and was scant reward for all the hard work and travelling we had put in. But it was a point at last and meant I featured in the final championship results, even though I was in twenty-eighth and last equal place with none other than Joey Dunlop. Joey had scored his solitary point by finishing tenth in a one-off ride at that wet British GP, showing he wasn’t just a pure road specialist.

      The 250 GP class had an incredible depth of field so there were some very good riders finishing between tenth place and twentieth places unlike the 500 class which had just a few brilliant riders up front and many lesser ones down the field. I knew I was riding quite well and it was a learning year for me so I couldn’t be too disappointed with myself. Of course, I would have liked more points but the bike was outclassed and I was still relatively inexperienced at GP level.

      While the bike may have been slow, the Silver-stone Armstrong squad had a pretty civilised set-up in the paddock. We had a new truck for the bikes, spares and tools and the little caravan to stay in when we were at the circuit. No one had big flashy motor homes back then so we didn’t look too out of place.

      The mechanics would often pick up female hitch-hikers in the truck on the way to circuits and they’d help cook and clean all weekend. At least that’s what they said they were all doing when they disappeared into the van for hours on end. The rest of us called those girls skunks because they always had blonde streaks and always smelled. Of course, Donnie and I had no interest in such shameful extra curricular activities. We were too busy with the racing.

      I remember there was always a big fight for the power points in the paddock because there were so few. Paddocks were pretty basic up until about 1987 and even water wasn’t readily available. We desperately needed a power point because we had no generator so we had lots of fights, pulling other peoples’ plugs out and plugging ours in! But the paddock was more friendly back then and everyone socialised and had barbecues unlike now when riders just lock themselves away.

      Donnie and I would go to all the European races in the car with Chas Mortimer, the team manager, while the mechanics drove the van to the races. We only flew to the far off, non-European races but I quite liked driving anyway; it was a real adventure for a little lad from Fankerton who hadn’t seen much of the world.

      I didn’t do so well on the food front in the paddock though. After being apprehended nicking Donnie’s carefully halved tomatoes, I got a notion in my head that if I didn’t eat at all, I’d be much lighter and so the bike would go faster. It was a new version of the Mackenzie fitness regime that had started with the duffel coat sauna technique. This time, I completely stopped eating and just lived on slimming drinks until I lost so much weight that I became really ill and developed pneumonia. It sounds really stupid now but we didn’t have any dieticians to advise us back then and all I thought about was the power to weight ratio of myself and the bike. What was the point of fighting to make the bike lighter when I could just lose weight myself? I had developed a dark shadow over my lungs by the time I got to Mugello in Italy so Dr Costa, the GP doctor, X-rayed me, told me I had pneumonia, put me on a course of antibiotics and told me that I would have to start eating again. Pretty sound advice, I suppose.

      Still, whenever I returned from the GPs to race in the UK in 1985, I won just about everything I entered. In the Circuit Promoters 350cc Championship, for example, I won every round that I raced in except one when I finished second. That was enough to give me the title for the second year running with one round still to go, even though I had missed some rounds because I was racing abroad.

      I won the 250cc British Championship as well for the first time in 1985 but I had to employ some cunning to make sure I did. The title was between Alan Carter and myself and there were only six points between us when we went to the final round at Oulton Park. There were two races but basically we just had to beat each other and ignore everyone else. In the first leg on the Saturday, it was raining and Carter was leading me when I fell off. I realised immediately that he didn’t know I had crashed so I hid my bike and myself behind the hay bales before he came round on the next lap. The theory was that if he didn’t know I had crashed, he might still think I was right behind him and be pressured into making a mistake. If he saw me with my crashed bike, he could easily have slackened the pace and cruised round to victory. So he came back round and I hid there watching him and sure enough, within three or four laps he slid off! It worked perfectly. All’s fair in love, war and bike racing. I

      remember after the race, Scottish bike racing journalist Norrie Whyte said to me: ‘Aye, ye tried tae gee the championship tae Carter and he gave ye it right back!’

      I told Alan Carter what I had done because we were good mates and he just laughed about it. On the Sunday, I needed to finish third in the final race to win the title and I actually finished second to my team-mate Donnie McLeod with Carter third, so I won the championship fair and square-ish.

      Racing aside, 1985 was a year that marked another major event in my life as that was when I met my future wife, Jan Burtenshaw (I think she only married me to get rid of her surname!) even though it was under pretty strange circumstances. She was working as secretary to Robert Fearnall at Donington Park and I was a very good friend of his. I first met him in 1982 and ever since then he has helped me as a genuine friend. Every year he did something major to help me whether it was with financial advice or just really useful information about what was going on with racing at the circuits. We’d meet up now and again and exchange info; I’d tell him all about what was happening in racing with teams and sponsors and he’d fill me in with what was happening with the promoters and organisers.

      Because we were good friends, Robert always asked me to phone him to let him know how I’d done in every race and when he wasn’t in, his new secretary called Jan answered the phone. We were both twenty-four at the time and I remember thinking she sounded really nice on the phone but I’d been caught out with that old trap a few times so I didn’t want to pre-judge her. After all, she might have been a bit rough! Anyway, I got chatting to her each time I called and said ‘Tell Robert I won again’ but I don’t know if it impressed her. I suspect not. Then on one occasion Robert said he and Jan were travelling up to the Ingliston circuit near Edinburgh (it’s just a small, armco-lined track more like a Go-Kart track) and asked if we wanted to meet up and have a chat. I was very interested to see what this Jan looked like so me and my best mate Wullie McKay decided we’d go along and have a look from a distance without actually introducing ourselves. I watched her walking around and thought she looked all right so we went up and introduced ourselves. I liked what I saw and I met her again at some of the British meetings towards the end of the year and we went out on a date.

      I still can’t believe what a plonker I was on that date. I was wearing horrible clothes (including a really naff Renault jumper as Jan still reminds me) which I got free from sponsors and I remember actually telling Jan that I had washed my hair especially thinking that would impress her. What a nobber! I may have won the 350cc championship that day but I was still obviously