Henry Lucas ·
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- Mike Hailwood's Great Return to TT -
It seemed impossible that with his weighted and wound-marked physique (he had practically lost an ankle joint) he would get back into the game at 38, no one would bet on that legend of motoring that seemed to belong in the past.
The operation took place without prosecutors, contracts or pills. Mike Hailwood wanted to return to racing on the roads of the Isle of Man. Thirty-eight years old, from eleven absentees at the Tourist Trophy, the English champion recognized the Ducati 900 as the best means for returning to the Mountain Circuit with two wheels. What happened at Silverstone, in 1977, during a Formula 1 motorcycle race, had something extraordinary: Mike the Bike, guest of the organizers, almost jokingly climbed on the Ducati from a stationary, holding the half handlebars, decided that he could come back with that bike.
The motorcycle, from a setting far from extreme, had convinced him: with that, his right leg, offended in the car accident at the Nurburgring in 1974, it wouldn’t have given him any problems. Mike was sure about it.
The operation started with a handshake between him and Sports Motorcycles owner Steve Wynne.
Three motorcycles were ordered, just as they left NCR, one for Mike, one for Nicholls and one for a collector's friend of the English champion. Hailwood’s bike was prepared by shifting the gear left first, so that it could have it on the “good” leg.
87 mm enlarged pistons, made in America, instead of the Borgo 86 were mounted, and the diameter of the valves was increased, from 39 to 43 mm to aspiration and from 36 to 39 mm to discharge.
The Marzocchi shock absorbers had to give way to the Girling and Hewland Gears provided a series of close reports for the change. The Lucas "RITA" electronic ignition system was then adopted.
The motorcycles, painted in red and green separated by a thin white stripe in tribute to the motorcycle’s nationality.
Steve Wynne and his team tested and tested the bike again, loading it with work and kilometers, so much to induce Ducati to send technicians Farné and Pedretti with a new engine for the race. How many would bet on Mike? “We were all skeptical – says Giacomo Agostini – about the fact that he was going to participate in such an important and challenging race at his age. “
Mike and the Ducati vs Phil Read on the Honda. Tom Herron and John Williams, also in Honda, Ian Richards' Kawasaki, Alex George's Triumph, Charles Mortimer's Suzuki and BMW's Helmut Dahne were there ready to make the most of the uncertainty of the two main contenders.
But that Saturday, June 3, 1978, there was no history: Mike the Bike and the Ducati flew imperishly on the streets of Man, sending the public into notice and those who, bet on what on the eve was a little more than a dream, had won. In two laps Mike caught up with Phil, catching up with the fifty seconds that split the start of the two British outclassmen, causing him to pull his neck overboard at the breaking Honda engine. Last lap was a gorgeous, very fast, walkway for Hailwood and his white, red and green bike. Ducati was, for the first time in its history, World Champion, being the only test race of the Formula 1 TT World Championship. For Mike the Bike's latest big undertaking.
