And why? Saw this in Bike magazine, thought I'd bring it here. Mine is Rocket Ron Haslam. It was undoubtedly Barry Sheene that brought bikes to my attention, but The Man for me was Haslam just because of his never-say-die attitude. And the precise moment I knew for sure he was The Man was the 1986 Transatlantic Challenge, when he took a bog-stock VFR750 and stuffed it up the inside of so many pukka race machines to step on the podium. Proper heroic. I met him a couple of years later in a pub, and he couldn't have been nicer. Sure, he never won a gp, but when you look at who he was up against, and what he was wrestling round, it's a testament to him that he got as high up as he did.
Mario Andretti as he raced and won top GP class on two continents. F1, Indy, Nascar. Bruno Senna due to his attitude towards racing and the way he was in control of a car. It was so smooth he made it look easy.
Mine were typical boyhood heroes like Pele, George Best and Barry Sheene. I'm sure I must have had more but those were the main ones.
Bill Tilman An amazing character, decorated in the first world war as a Subaltern, involved in the early exploration of the himalaya, tea planter in Kenya, parachuted behind enemy lines in Albania in the second world war, sailed to the arctic and antarctic in a series Bristol Channel Pilot Cutters and finally lost at sea whilst sailing to the South Atlantic to celebrate his 80th birthday. If you see his biography, High Mountains and Cold Seas (currently out of print) then buy it.
Where do you start with this stuff? The list is huge with so many that deserve it, but for me, it has to be Barry or Joey and I'm not gonna rank one as a greater hero than the other for different reasons.
Got a biography of him here called the Last Hero by Tim Madge. Amazing man that not too many people know about these days.
Mike Stewart (bodyboarder) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia When I lived in Newquay, I saw him do a 6ft 360 degree aerial off a gutless 2ft wave.
For me, one of my favorites is Kim Newcombe, he came from nowhere (NZ) built his own bike (Konig) and took on the might of MV Agusta and beat them in the World 500cc GP series, he was killed at Silverstone, Stowe corner, before the end of the season and still came second in the championship behind Ago. There is a doco on the season called (I think) Love,Speed and Loss. It's chocked full of period footage, Rider interviews (Ago, Read, and many more...) it is available online for free, Google the title. Well worth a watch Another is John Britten, for similar reasons.
I don't really have heroes as such, but the guy I liked to watch most was Illie Nastase. Not only was he a fine, deft and subtle tennis player but he was hilarious. Do you remember when he crawled under the covers on Centre Court and refused to come out until they called him MR. Nastase? Magic! Definitely the funniest there has been.
