The first Grand Prix in 1985 was the South African at Kyalami and I was twenty-fourth from twenty-eight which wasn’t the best start to the season. I thought I was doing all right in the race because I was with some pretty good riders but then Freddie Spencer (who went on to win both the 250 and 500 titles that year) came past me about half way through the race. I thought ‘Bloody hell, he must have had a bad start’ but then Anton Mang and Mario Rademeyer came past too and it was only then that I realised I was actually being lapped! It really demoralised me. There were no blue flags to let me know I was being lapped and I started getting depressed in the remaining laps but again, it was a really fast circuit so I shouldn’t have let it get to me so much.
At Kyalami, the Armstrong was giving away about 15-20mph to the top bikes, which is a hell of a lot over a full race distance.
I was also in a great deal of pain because of my pale Scottish complexion. I had gone from a freezing Scottish winter into thirty-five degrees of sub-tropical heat in South Africa and my pale blue skin just couldn’t take it. As Billy Connolly says, it took me a while in the sun to go from blue to white and then I just seemed to go lobster red in a matter of minutes. Come race day, I could hardly get my leathers on because of the pain of the sunburn and I was shedding skin like a snake all over the garage floor. I could probably have had an extra set of leathers made out of my own skin! Real Mackenzie reps!
Again, I was out of my depth racing against the GP stars just as I had been when I started racing in British championships but I still knew it was the only way to really improve my riding. But at the next race in Jarama, it started to pay off because I qualified in tenth place, by far my best performance in a GP to date. Then the bike broke after just fourteen laps in the race itself so it was disappointment time again.
At that stage in my career, neither the team members nor I were technically minded enough to have debriefings after a race so we just accepted our result, whatever it was, and packed up the kit. We’d have a quick bitch and a moan then just go for a beer. I was still too young and happy about life to let it get me down and be miserable. I always tried to keep a smile on my face, even when there wasn’t a lot of personal space to be had in the little caravan I shared with my team-mate Donnie McLeod.
I suppose to some people, Donnie could be quite a difficult person to get on with but I tend to get on with most people so we never had any real problems. The pair of us lived in that little caravan for the best part of two years and never had a proper argument so that must say something. He kept his cards fairly close to his chest but he was a level-headed person and very serious at the racetrack although he liked to have a few beers when the racing was over.
But when I first got to know him he would piss me off because he’d finish fifth in a GP and I’d say ‘Fantastic result mate’ but he’d just moan that it wasn’t good enough. I’d have been ecstatic at getting fifth in a GP back then but as I got older, I started thinking like Donnie and was never happy with my results either, always thinking I could have done better so now I know what he meant.
I learnt a lot from Donnie because I was young and daft when we met and I was still treating racing as a bit of a laugh. He was a lot more experienced and serious about his racing and some of that rubbed off on me.
I had to watch my step in the caravan though as Donnie lived life by the clock and he’d have strict routines such as eating lunch at exactly twelve noon and stuff like that. He’d also do things like cut a tomato in half, eat one half, then wrap the other neatly in silver foil and put it back in the fridge. He was very particular about those sorts of things. In the early days, I’d just waltz into the caravan and eat whatever was in the fridge, which used to really annoy him. But I soon realised that I wasn’t allowed to eat his half tomato or his quarter egg because he had very specific plans for them and they didn’t involve me!
However once I knew what the rules and boundaries were we became best mates. It just meant I had to find another food source. Donnie’s now managing a glass fibre company back in Scotland and he lectured at Napier University in Edinburgh for a while too. He’s a smart bloke. I respected him as a rider just as I respected Alan Carter who was another Brit doing 250 GPs. But I figured that if I was beating Alan in the Pro-Am series the year before then the only reason he and Donnie were going so well in GPs was because they were more experienced than me. I thought that once I’d gained more experience I’d be able to beat them.
I’ve never really been one to suffer from negative thoughts; there were a few times when I thought maybe I should have been doing something else but usually I looked at things in a positive manner and worked hard at improving my weaknesses. Some riders are beaten before they get to the start line because their thinking is just so negative.
I didn’t know too many people when I first started on the GP circuit. But I hung around with Alan and Donnie and I soon got to know people like Ron Haslam, Wayne Gardner and Rob McElnea who had all raced in the UK at the same time as me so the paddock social scene became quite good.
Before the first GP in South Africa, a group of us went on a safari, which was awesome, not least because my hero Randy Mamola came along too. Just being in the same paddock as Randy was an honour and there I was on safari with him! I must admit I was a bit star-struck with it all.
We had a lot of non-finishes in 1985 and when the bike did keep going, it was pretty slow. Having said that, we did manage to score quite a few top fifteen places which these days would net a rider some decent points. Back then though, points only went down to tenth place so we weren’t rewarded for our efforts.
As I said before, the good thing about doing GPs was coming back to race in the UK because I felt so much more confident than before. I was right up there with Donnie and Alan Carter who were the best 250 riders in Britain at the time and I could pretty much beat anyone else on the scene. I put in just as much effort when I raced in the UK because I wanted to be as impressive as possible to get noticed and I tried to break the lap record wherever I went.
It was a two way thing because when you compete in GPs, you’re more confident when you get back home, then when you win at home by a distance, you feel more confident about the next GP. One big difference was the time actually spent on a bike at a GP meeting; it was far more than at a domestic event, which really helped bring my riding along. The other thing is that you’re pushed to the limit. You see riders doing things that you don’t think are possible and you wouldn’t attempt if you hadn’t seen them being done. That sort of thing really stretches you as a rider.
Consistency is another thing that marks out the top foreign riders from some of the more erratic racers at home. I learned to have markers at every point on the circuit so I was accelerating, braking and cornering at exactly the same points, lap after lap after lap. For me, racing was never a seat-of-the-pants affair like it was for some guys – it was all about being precise. It was like doing a connect-the-dot puzzle and just joining up all the points.
A lot of people over the years have commented on the fact that I seem to ride very smoothly and I suppose I did work at that, even if I didn’t quite realise it. I had always admired Eddie Lawson and they don’t come much smoother than ‘Steady Eddie.’ Having said that, he could still hang it out with the best of them when he wanted to. Eddie was the only guy in 500s that I felt I could model myself on since I didn’t think I could ride loose and sideways like Mamola or Spencer because I didn’t come from a dirt bike background as they did. I had never ridden a Superbike either, which helps to develop a loose style. Just look at Jamie Whitham and Chris Walker when they’re riding.
Some riders are happy to stick with 250s and I feel that I could have done well on them if I’d stuck with them. But I always wanted to move to 500s – it was another challenge and another