Barry Sheene’s first world title and the summer that hooked a generation on bikes

On Sunday, July 25, 1976, Barry Sheene won the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp, crossing the finish line with both hands raised in V-for-victory salutes to celebrate securing his first MotoGP world championship.

I remember it well, even though I wasn’t there and even though I didn’t find out until a few days later, when that week’s Motor Cycle News hit the newsagents. Such was the life of a motorcycle racing fan 50 years ago.

I’d got my first bike only a few weeks earlier and was already falling under the spell. I recall sitting outside my dad’s house, basking in the heat of that long hot summer, engrossed in the report of Sheene’s triumph, unaware that motorcycles would become my life.

Like many in Britain, I’d got to know Sheene the previous year, watching the ITV documentary recounting the story of the 175mph Daytona crash that nearly claimed his life. The accident and his chipper attitude – he was chatting up the nurses even as his shattered body was wheeled into ER – made him a star.

Some already knew he would be famous, like the TV execs who had sent a film crew with him to Daytona. Motorcycle racing never usually attracts such attention – not then, not now – but Sheene oozed star quality.

“We’d go down to Tramp nightclub. We’d meet all the girls and rich people”

Most of that was natural, but not all. Sheene – who died from cancer in 2003 – knew he would get rich by winning world championships. He also knew he’d get richer by wooing race fans. And he knew he’d get richer still if he broke into the mainstream. And that’s exactly what he did.

Even before Sheene appeared in MotoGP, he could be seen in the pages of national newspapers and teen magazines.

“I began to get myself noticed when people realised that a motorcycle racer isn’t necessarily a mechanic with dirty fingernails but that he could be young, elegant and rich,” said Sheene after doing a deal with Mashe, a French jeans brand. “If I win a race, the specialist magazines tell the fans. If I model for a clothing firm, and my picture appears in the big dailies, millions who might never have heard of me become aware of Barry Sheene, motorcycle world champion.”

Sheene was a canny businessman who understood how cash works.

“In 1971, I borrowed some money to buy a Mercedes to travel to the circuits. Organisers don’t argue about start money if a bloke turns up in a posh car. On the other hand, a rider who turns up in a beaten-up banger of a van, with hands as grubby as a grease monkey, doesn’t stand an earthly.”

Sheene also knew where money lives.

“We’d go up to London, go down to Tramp nightclub,” remembers Steve Parrish, his friend and 1977 Suzuki team-mate (he finished fifth to Sheene’s first). “We’d meet all the girls and all the rich people – potential sponsors.”