That first year in 1981 I raced at about twenty meetings and got twelve wins, either in proper races or in qualifying heats so it was a pretty successful season for me. I also had my very first crash when a guy called Bernie Harrower hit me from behind and punted me off down Duffus Dip at Knockhill but I wasn’t hurt. I ended up having numerous crashes that year but never got badly injured and it certainly didn’t upset me mentally. In fact, I thought it was really exciting, like when you broke an arm at school and you could show off your plaster and get everyone to sign it. I started building up this idea of invincibility that was really dangerous I suppose. Even so, it lasted a long time, right through until 1986 when I broke my leg badly at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire. That soon snapped me out of it. But then again, I had always wanted to have a steel plate in my leg too, so I eventually got my wish granted. And I’ve kept the plate to go with my little wooden plaque from Carnaby.
The social side of life in the paddock in those early days was also quite good because I didn’t have any preparation to do on my bike. I filled it with fuel, kicked the tyres and that was about it unless there was any accident damage that needed to be repaired. Pirn Fleming, Bob Mac-Intyre’s old mechanic, took the engine apart halfway through the season and just put it back together again. The idea was to match the ports up but he said they were fine when he took it apart. It just ran all year without any problems, which is a good advert for the reliability of RDs.
As far as tyres went, I only changed them when they looked like they were really worn down to the canvas. I maybe got through three or four sets all season, which is much less than a top rider today would use in one qualifying session! The rules said we had to run treaded tyres so the more wear on them the better because then I thought they were more like proper racing slicks.
Depending on where the race was and when everyone finished work, the Rae brothers and myself would usually set off in the van on a Friday. We’d find a local pub, have a few beers and then fight in the back of the van over space and covers until everyone nodded off.
As far as food went, we managed to heat up simple things like tomato soup on a little stove but usually we just survived on bacon butties and chips from vans. Quality!
Despite the glamorous image of modern GP bike racing, being a racer at club circuits in the early ‘80s didn’t exactly increase my bird-pulling power. I think the image then was still of black leather-jacketed, greasy-arsed bikers, but I did all right on the girl front anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I was no Tom Cruise but I got by. My racing mates and I would sometimes tell girls that we were bike racers but then I’m sure they’d heard all sorts of bullshit like that before, like ‘Hi, I’m an astronaut’ or ‘Hi, I’m a racing driver’ so I don’t think they listened to us anyway. There were a few stalker types who went to Knockhill every week wanting to get off with racers but they never seemed to come in our direction, which is probably just as well. If they had spent the night in the back of our van there would have been more chance of them getting a kicking than getting snogged!
People started buying me drinks when I started doing well so that was good. It got to the point where I was going out with money in my pocket but never had to spend it because everyone insisted on buying me drinks! Result. I was pretty well looked after that way and I even got sponsorship from a local Denny pub called Whispers. After my first year they gave me £500 in cash which was mega and I got free Bacardi and Cokes every time I went there. All I had to do in return was put the pub’s name on my van.
I think everyone could tell I was getting really serious about racing as I was spending all my money on it.
I remember getting my name in the paper for the first time in 1981 which was quite cool too. It was the Falkirk Herald and they probably spelt my name wrong. Over the years I’ve been Neil or Nyall or Nail and MacKenzie or McKenzie or any other variation you could think of. I’ve even been called Niall Armstrong by TV commentator Chris Carter but that was understandable because I was riding an Armstrong bike at the time – or maybe he thought I was a space cadet!
The other thing is where I come from. I’ve read that I’m from Falkirk, Denny, Stirling, Dunblane, Doune, Scunthorpe and everywhere except where I’m actually from which is Fankerton. Once on TV, Murray Walker even said I was from Bolton in England!
But it was great to get in the papers anyway and I still have a scrap-book with all those early cuttings, most of which were collected by my mum. I think she was quite proud of me after that first season. She was a friend of the Rae family and they told her that I was pretty good and that she should be proud of me. Mum was particularly friendly with Jimmy Rae’s sister Margaret as they had grown up together, and Margaret followed my career with great enthusiasm right up until my last race in 2001.
After I’d been racing bikes all day, I’d usually go straight to The Pines for a pint or three before going home. My mum always used to wait up for me after a race as I suppose she didn’t know if she still had a son or not, yet I’d be down at the local pub without a care in the world.
Once the pub shut, I’d normally head home unless the Mackenzie charm had borne some fruit with the ladies. I didn’t have a car and couldn’t take girls home so I either had to borrow a mate’s car or just walk them home via the bus shelter, but I’d normally get home about 11.30pm and mum would be waiting to see if I was still alive. More often than not, I’d be half-cut and would insist on talking her through the whole day. She’d sit there and listen patiently and I thought she was totally engrossed even though she probably just wanted to go to sleep! For years I thought she was sitting up to hear all my tales of derring-do on the racetrack but then I realised she had only waited up to see if I was still alive and in one piece. Bless her.
During 1981 I developed an interest in Grand Prix racing and my first hero was Kenny Roberts who had already been three times world champion at that point. I liked Randy Mamola too, and he would later become a good friend and even nicknamed me ‘Spuds’ Mackenzie after the dog in the Budweiser adverts. I had no negative feelings towards Barry Sheene but he was such a massive ‘name’ that it was almost difficult to think of him as a bike racer. As far as I was concerned, he was a mainstream celebrity. To me, Roberts and Mamola were just pure bike racers and I liked that. And at that time they were beating Sheene so they were the men for me. But Sheene later gave me some good advice when I got into the 500 GP scene in 1986. I met him in London at a dinner and I had just signed for Honda. He told me not to get involved with any management companies (who usually take around twenty per cent of earnings), just to deal with things myself and that was a good piece of advice that I adhered to mostly over the years. There’s a lot of people in this game who just want to jump on the bandwagon as soon as you have a bit of success and Sheene knew that better than most because he had such a high profile so he was worth listening to.
He also told me to invest everything I had in property in London back then. I thought he was a bit off the mark with that one but it shows how wrong you can be.
It may not sound terrific, but I had another result in 1981 that I was particularly proud of; a fifth place in the national Yamaha Pro-Am Championship when it came to Knockhill. This was the series that would later help me to make a name for myself and it showed me that even in my first year, I had what it took to mix it with some very good national riders. As I said, I finished fifth but I started from the back of the grid and I know I could have won that race if I hadn’t run out of laps. There were some good riders in that championship like Kenny Irons and Kevin Mitchell so I knew I was doing something right. I must have been because I broke the record for losing my orange novice jacket (having competed in nine national races) quicker than anyone else in Scotland, and as far as I’m aware, I still hold that record.
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