Two-stroke tuning guru Stan Stephens retires after more than 60 years in the motorcycle industry

Two-stroke tuning legend, Stan Stephens has retired after more than six decades in the trade.

The former sidecar and speedway racer had been building high performance, championship winning engines well into his seventies when he made the decision to retire following family health problems.

“My wife had a bad accident,” Stephens said. “It was a bit of a sudden decision, and I just thought sod it one day and left a message on the answer phone saying that I had retired.”

His racing career began at an early age, initially starting on solo machines before finding his competitive calling aboard sidecars – which he spent nine years racing until 1980. In between, Stephens rode speedway and drove stock-cars too.

However, it was his tuning accolades that enshrined Stephens’ name among the greats of British racing.

After starting his own motorcycle shop in 1972, he opened Stan Stephens tuning in 1981 having established himself as the go-to man for two-stroke tunes, particularly for his work on Yamaha’s air-cooled RD250 and 350 LCs.

Stephens went on to produce engines for hundreds of riders, and he claims to have sponsored or assisted over 90 racers throughout the 1980s, including the likes of Jeremy McWilliams, John Reynolds and Mat Oxley.

“At our peak we were tuning a humongous number of engines, there would be 30 ready and waiting for us every Monday morning,” Stephens told MCN.

“I remember doing an advert at the end of a season, it showed the Marlboro series and the first ten in the 350, 250 and 500 were all on our bikes, I’d say 90% of the bikes out there were tuned by us,” recalled Stephens.