With the sad untimely passing of Barry Sheene we all seem to mention the fact that Barry was very anti TT. In reality he was a TT rider, but didn't like it. I had a long converstion with him about it once when he explained that the worst thing about the TT was the length of the circuit & the fact that riders had to go to chase world championship points. He was also entered for 1972 after a fairly disaterous debut in 1971 but an injury sustained at the Austrian GP meant he was a non starter.He told me that he did race & won
on pure road circuits,Mettet, Chimay etc & was an absolute ace at Scarborough but they were relativly much shorter circuits & you knew where you were going he explained. He also was entered for the NW 200 once but Tom Herron's accident put paid to that.During that time some works riders like Mamola & Gardner were forbbinen to ride at some circuits but Barry had it in his contract that he could race at Scarborough.
Barry attended the TT many times over the years & there are many photos of him especially with Gary Hocking & a young Phil Read who was at the time going out with Maggie, Barry's sister.
Frank his father raced at the Manx GP & TT for many years, and loved the place.He was there for the races a couple of years ago.Barry's brother in law Paul Smart was also a top line TT competitor & Barry himself gave his 500 Akai Yamaha to Bernard Murray for the TT in the early 80's.Frank entered many riders for the TT for years so the Sheene name was in one way or the other involved with the TT.In the early 1970's when the TT was still a GP race the financial awards was at best very dismal & that fact in itself kept many famous champions like Jarno Saarinen etc away.And lastly Barry's best racing pal Steve Parrish was a very good TT rider for many years. I once asked Parrish in front of Barry what did he think of him doing the TT to which I recieved a short answer -It's f--k all to do with him!
It's certainly the end of an era.