750s: Racing goes technicolour

A fleet of factory-prepared BSA and Triumph triples brought colour, competition, a glorious noise and a bunch of rowdy Americans to British circuits in 1971. It was one of the best ever years for fans, and the start of a new era for motorcycle racing.

n 10 September 1969 Doug Hele, Triumph’s chief development engineer, wrote a confidential memo to the firm’s managers. He suggested the factory should switch its emphasis from production racing to the new F750 open class that was being talked about.
“Production racing has restricted development,” he began. “Instead of using in production something that has been used in development, the rules ensure no changes can be made, other than secret internal modifications of minor nature.
“F750 would provide a competition department which would create a vast store of information on new approaches to problems, as a guide to our designers.”
At the time, the 500cc class of grand prix racing had sunk to an MV-dominated nadir. Giacomo Agostini was cantering to easy wins on the Italian multis. A minute or two, or even a full lap behind him, there would follow a struggling privateer riding
a British single or an early pioneer of two-stroke technology.
Unexpectedly, the old order was subverted. Doug Hele didn’t single-handedly launch F750 racing, but it certainly helped that Britain’s pre-eminent motorcycle designer was in favour of the idea. Acting on his suggestion, BSA-Triumph soon announced a huge factory effort with its 750cc Rocket III and Trident triples.
The 1970 Daytona 200 mile race was arguably the first Formula 750 event and Doug Hele’s team worked flat-out through the winter to develop the bike and prepare a team – they were beaten by unreliability and Dick Mann on a Honda – but the following year the new class really took off.
In February 1971, promoter Chris Lowe unveiled the first Anglo-American confrontation, a revolutionary innovation. And in March the TT organisers joined in the fun – they announced that the first F750 TT would be staged in June.
Then Norton launched a factory team headed by Peter Williams, and a new race series, the MCN Superbike Championship, for British short circuits, was unveiled.
In 1971 Giacomo Agostini and his MV Agusta won eight out of the 11 500cc GPs and won the title at a canter. But by then, the British race-going public didn’t care. They had other races to follow. Early in April, a bunch of rowdy Americans arrived in England to contest the Anglo-American Match Races.

The Match Races  4, 6, 7 April. Brands Hatch, Mallory Park, Oulton Park

“I was 20 years old, and this was much bigger than anything we had dreamed of,” American rider Don Emde recalls. “When we landed at Heathrow they had a press room, with a bike, and John Cooper and Paul Smart were there. With BSA-Triumph it felt like signing with Ferrari or the Ford Motor Company.”
There were two races at each of three tracks: Brands Hatch (Good Friday), Mallory Park (Easter Sunday), and Oulton Park (Easter Monday). The American team, champion Dick Mann, Gary Nixon, Dave Aldana, Don Emde and the 21-year-old Don Castro were pitted against great riders who had grown up on these circuits: Ray Pickrell, Percy Tait and Tony Jefferies, plus Cooper and Smart. It was clear that the British would win, but the Americans charmed everyone with their freshness and guts.
“We got beaten so badly that it was close to an ambush situation,” Emde recalls. “But we gave it a good shot, and if we had all been on the same bikes as Pickrell, Smart and Cooper,
it would have been closer.”
He’s right about the bikes. In 1970 the triples had raced with 10in four-leading-shoe Fontana drum brakes. For 1971, Hele’s changes included twin front discs, a stiffer front end, better ground clearance, and an increase in power, to 84bhp.
But he couldn’t produce ten new bikes for ’71 so some of the Americans, including Emde, rode the older model. The highest scoring American was the wily 37-year-old Dick Mann, who took a third at Brands and Mallory, and a second at Oulton.
For 60,000 fans it had been an extraordinary Easter weekend. On Good Friday, at Brands Hatch , they’d paid 70p (less than £10 in today’s money) to see the main event plus a supporting programme which included wins for Barry Sheene in the 350cc race on a Yamaha, for Dave Croxford in the 500cc class riding a Seeley, and for Charlie Sanby on a 750cc Gus Kuhn Norton.

Results
Brands Hatch race one: Ray Pickrell (BSA).
Race two: Ray Pickrell (BSA).
Mallory race one: Ray Pickrell (BSA).
Race two: Paul Smart (Triumph).
Oulton Park race one: Paul Smart (Triumph).
Race two: Paul Smart (Triumph)
Overall result: Britain (183 points) USA (137 points)

Formula 750 TT  5 June, Isle of Man

By June of 1971 the triples had proved themselves in a 200-mile race on an American circuit – Dick Mann had won on the banking at Daytona on a BSA – and on British short circuits (at Brands Hatch, the Match Races used the 1.24-mile club circuit). But all the same, Doug Hele anticipated trouble at the inaugural F750 TT, to be run over three laps of the Mountain course.
“I was expecting the bikes to give handling problems, but we found that the strong frames and the excellent steering geometry made them handle well,” he said when I interviewed him in 1972.
The race developed into a four-way contest between the 23-year-old Tony Jefferies and Pickrell on the triples, Peter Williams on the works Norton and Sanby on the Kuhn Norton.
Jefferies led by six seconds from Sanby on lap one. But the triples’ rampant power and the meticulous preparation by Hele’s crew enabled them to crush the twins.
Jefferies won, averaging 102.85 mph and lapping at 103.21mph, from Pickrell. Sanby was forced to pull up on the last lap with suspected electrical problems. Peter Williams managed third place despite his Norton suffering from clutch slip, a broken exhaust pipe and an engine that wouldn’t pull top gear.
It was Jefferies whose name would go down in history as the winner of the island’s first ever race for open-class 750s. Until that year, the most prestigious race on the island had been the 500cc Senior TT. But Jefferies was riding a raging beast that had recorded 165mph through the timing lights at Daytona.
“It feels like riding a jet engine,” Jefferies said afterwards. “Everyone says the bike must be a handful, but it isn’t as bad as one would think. It steers remarkably well. Only on the fast flicks do you notice the weight.” All of that must have been music to Hele’s ears, just as much as the sound of the triples was mind-blowing for British fans after decades of single-cylinder droners.

Results
1 Tony Jefferies (Triumph), 2 Ray Pickrell (BSA), 3 Peter Williams (Norton)

Race of the Year  19 September, Mallory Park

For the Race of the Year at Mallory in September, Chris Lowe had attracted Agostini and the MV three. This was the showdown. Was the global success of the British-built triples about to be exposed as a flash in the pan? Would the old guard – a factory-built 500cc grand prix racing bike – make the British bikes look no better than farm machinery?
“Agostini was considered to be almost unbeatable on the MV, and although there was some speculation about whether our roadster-based 750s could stop him, I did not really consider this to be possible,” Doug Hele told me later.
John Cooper had been asking Hele for more rides on the 1971-spec triple that he had used in the match races. But Hele’s small team was working 60-hour weeks, not including the time they spent at circuits, to maintain five F750 bikes together with three production-racing triples. The team deserves mention here: mechanics Steve Brown, Bill Fannon, Arthur Jakeman, Fred Swift, Jack Shemans and John Woodward, race shop manager
Les Williams and engineering assistant Norman Hyde.
So Hele had to refuse Cooper his request – until the Race of the Year. The name could not have been more apt.
“It turned into the most breathtaking and exciting event I have ever seen,” Hele said later. “I got my first shock when John came through on the opening lap leading Agostini.”
I was in the crowd at Mallory that day, and the mood amongst the fans was like nothing else that I’d experienced at a race track until then. But we let out a roar of fear when Cooper got the 370lb BSA in a massive slide in the Esses – it looked like he was going over the bars. He recovered, but Agostini passed him – it seemed that the establishment had resumed control.
But Cooper came back – and repassed Ago on the 22nd of the 30 laps. “It was at this point that I first realised we could win,” Hele said. “John had gone through a nasty moment, but had still been able to recover and get back into the lead.”
Cooper eventually took the flag by 0.6 seconds from Agostini. “This race must be rated as the greatest of all the victories we scored with the threes,” Hele, who passed away in 2001 at the age of 82, reflected.
The launch of F750 racing in 1971 led eventually to the birth
of the World Superbike Championship in 1988. But for BSA-Triumph it was the beginning of the end. In May 1971, as racing success was peaking, the group’s motorcycle division forecast that it would make a substantial loss. The company’s marketing director, Peter Deverall, said the firm could have sold five times as many triples as it was producing. Strikes and shortages of parts and labour were to blame. It meant the axe for Doug Hele’s race-development budget at the end of the year.
But what a year. The team also won at Daytona (Dick Mann), the Bol d’Or (Ray Pickrell/Percy Tait) and the Ontario 100 (Cooper). For that one fleeting season it had been fantastic to see British bikes leading the world.

Results
1 John Cooper (BSA), 2 Giacomo Agostini (MV Agusta 500), 3 Ray Pickrell (BSA)

Words Mike Nicks  Photos Richard Adams and Bauer archive