Niall Mackenzie: The Autobiography

At seventeen, I also started going to pubs with my pals. I looked so young that I couldn’t get served before that, so up until then we’d had to content ourselves by buying bottles of Pomagne or Buckfast from the off-licence and drinking them in the park. Pure class.

When I did go out drinking, it would be at The Pines in Denny or at various Young Farmers discos which were a big thing in rural Scotland at the time (and probably still are). I was already familiar with The Pines pub because of the chip shop of the same name next door. We all used to hang about at The Pines chip shop every night as kids then we graduated to the pub next door when we were old enough. We were there every night with push-bikes, motorbikes, cars or whatever we had. Everyone on bikes would try to show off doing wheelies and stunts and I was no exception. I had one go wrong once and ended up riding right in through the chip shop doors, landing on my backside in a heap, back wheel still spinning, saying ‘Two steak pies and a fish supper please.’

It was a great atmosphere at The Pines. Everyone got on well together and the cops pretty much left us alone because we weren’t doing any damage, chip shop doors notwithstanding. I was always good at socialising with different groups from the rough kids right through to the really academic types. I just seemed to blend in well with anyone.

By this time, my friends Alistair and Stewart Rae (Jimmy’s boys) had started racing and I went with them to several meetings in Scotland and in the north of England. I still had no intention of going racing myself, I was chuffed just to be helping the lads. They had a Fiat van, which was always breaking down, and we went all over the place in it having a great time wherever we’d go.

There would be the Rae brothers, me and my best mate Wullie McKay, with whom I worked, and we always got drunk on Saturday nights and ended up fighting each other in the back of the van. We were all in sleeping bags battling for space to stretch out and once someone started kicking, all hell broke loose. It actually got pretty rough and there were some nasty cuts and bruises dished out but it was such a laugh that we didn’t care.

I figured those boys were going to be world champions when they started finishing in the top six in club races. I believed they would go all the way.

But even attending race meetings and helping out where I could wasn’t enough to inspire me to go racing myself. It was something entirely different which provided that inspiration. It was called an RD350LC and it was Yamaha’s hot new street bike.

When the RD350LC was first launched in 1980, it was the bike for teenage boy racers and it still has a cult following to this day. With a top speed of 110mph, it was derived straight from the racetrack and I just knew I had to have one. Although I didn’t know it at the time, that was the bike which launched my road-racing career and helped keep the wolves from the door for the next twenty years.

But before that happened, I still had to learn my trade on the streets of Denny with the newly acquired RD that, incidentally, cost me the princely sum of £1130. My mates and I had a circuit that ran round Denny and the official start line was at The Pines pub. On a flying lap, we’d ride past there at over 100mph and I did my first through-the-box wheelie on that circuit too, which was one of my best moments in biking. I’ll never forget the feeling of changing right up into third gear on the back wheel. I was ‘the daddy’ that night and I remember stepping off the bike and passing all the girls going into the chippie trying to act all cool about it. But inside I was bursting with pride and I knew (or thought) that I was the man in Denny that night.

I suppose my propensity for speed was beginning to blossom on the little Yam although I didn’t realise it at the time. I used to pass people on the brakes before the junction at the bottom of the road and didn’t really know why I was faster than they were – I thought they were just braking early for some reason. But I was always nervous of traffic on the roads and never really felt that comfortable. I fell off the LC a few times on filthy, greasy roads but it was always at low speeds and I only ever skinned my knees. Falling off back then never did my confidence as a road rider any good – it just reminded me that too many things could go wrong on public roads. And if you don’t want to ride your motorcycle on public roads, there’s only one place left to go – the racetrack.

After all, Knockhill was only a few miles away and it would soon be hosting rounds of the allnew 500cc Scottish Production Championship. By lucky coincidence, most of the entrants would be on Yamaha’s new RD350LC, the bike that I had been racing round the streets. Surely a track would be safer?

CHAPTER TWO Tractor Racing (#ulink_b6f1ee46-8732-54ee-a84b-b6823ad4f289)

When I bought my Yamaha RD350LC at the end of 1980 I didn’t actually have a driving licence. I’d lost it due to a series of stupid incidents which meant I accumulated enough points to have it taken off me, although I got it back soon afterwards.

On one occasion, when I just had my provisional licence, I got caught driving a car with someone beside me who didn’t have a full licence either and we got nicked. I thought the chances of getting done again the same night for the same offence were zero so we drove on to Falkirk unperturbed but against all the odds, I got caught again!

But the clincher came when I was still working at my friend’s farm; I was driving a tractor down a country road when I came across an old farmer in another tractor and thought I could overtake him, even though we were both maxed out at around 24mph. With everything in my Massey Ferguson 35 cab rattling and shaking, I squeezed every last mph out of the thing but, although I got alongside him, I had no power left to get past and there was a corner approaching fast. A car appeared and was heading straight for me but somehow the driver managed to stop and the old farmer grudgingly backed off and let me pull in in front of him. That was when another car came round the corner, skidded, and slammed into the first car.

I should have stopped but instead I kept my head down and pretended I didn’t see anything even though the whole thing was visible in my mirrors. Anyway, I got my just rewards because the old farmer recognised me and reported me to the police so they caught up with me and added my driving licence to their collection.

As soon as I got my licence back, I started riding the RD everywhere. Then late in the winter of 1980 the SACU (Scottish Auto Cycle Union) announced that they would be running a 500cc production championship the next year – and my bike fitted that category perfectly. My mates who raced said I should have a go so I did a few practice sessions at Knockhill pre-season. I didn’t even need to have a race licence, I just showed up, paid my money and went out on track. It cost a fiver for the morning and a fiver for the afternoon. Top value!

I really enjoyed it and decided that I might as well have a crack at racing just to see what it was all about. But I have to come clean here and admit that my first ever race wasn’t actually at Knockhill as most people think and as I’ve told everyone over the years. I said I’d won my first ever race because it looked good on my CV and to a certain extent it was true because I did win my first race at Knockhill. But my first actual attempt at racing was at Carnaby racetrack just north of Bridlington in the north of England the weekend before my Knockhill debut. It was just a wee white lie that sounded good when I was trying to get sponsorship so I don’t mind admitting it now. May I take this opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused!

I went out in the first practice session at Carnaby which was for production bikes and race bikes together, and I soon started passing some of the proper race bikes through the corners on my little RD350.

Obviously, they would blast past me on the straights again because they were so much faster but then I’d get them back at the next corner. After a few laps of this I realised I was going okay. Strangely enough I wasn’t nervous at all, even going into the first corner of my first race which should have been a very scary experience with everyone fighting for the same piece of track, elbows and knees everywhere. I was so pumped up that I didn’t care if I crashed or died or anything. I suppose I must have had some kind of natural feel for it; either that or God was on my side because there was no reason why I should have known what I was doing. It just happened and I somehow managed to make it round to the finish and in a pretty respectable position too.

I finished third in the 500cc production class at Carnaby among some pretty hot riders and I knew who they were because I’d been to Carnaby with the Rae brothers before. There were riders like Geoff Crust (who’d later become my mechanic), Charlie Corner, Curt Langan and Gordon Allott and they were all really hard racers.

I remember coming home with this little wooden plaque with ‘Carnaby 3rd’ written on it and I kept it in my pocket for a week. I don’t know how many times a day I would get it out of my pocket at work and just look at it. I couldn’t believe I had actually won something, even though I hadn’t won the race. I’ve still got that plaque to this day and it’s the best trophy I’ve ever won.

I didn’t get any money for racing at Carnaby (in fact it cost me £15 to enter and £5 in fuel) and later that year they even stopped giving out those plaques and replaced them with certificates. No comparison. I loved my little plaque.

The effect of that first race meeting on me was incredible and very difficult to explain. I was on a high for a week afterwards and totally hooked. If I’d finished last it might have been a different story but then again, I’m really good at justifying things to myself so I’d probably have just thought ‘Right, next time I’ll try not to be last’ and kept working away at it. But I got third place and was just over the moon.

I didn’t race against my friends and travelling companions Alistair and Stewart because they were in the pukka racing classes but I’m not sure what they thought after I’d done so well in my first race. They sort of congratulated me through gritted teeth but even if they did feel a bit put out as I suspected, they could still fall back on the fact that they were riding in the pure racing classes while I was in the less prestigious production class. I suppose in a way, I stole a bit of attention away from them and after they had helped me so much they maybe had a right to feel a bit annoyed. I’d probably have felt the same had the situation been reversed.

Incidentally, I hadn’t gone to Carnaby to avoid having my debut race in front of people who knew me, it’s just that the Raes offered to take my bike in their van so it simply made sense to go. It was a bit too far too ride my RD all the way to England then hope it would be in good enough shape to race, but I used to ride it to Knockhill and race it because it wasn’t too far from Fankerton. The sump of the RD was permanently wired up so all I did when I got to the circuit was take the indicators and number plate off, tape up the lights and it was ready to race. Sometimes I would ride my bike to the circuit, win a few races on it and then ride it home again! And at lunchtimes, I’d often take it for a practice session round the little roads that run past the circuit just to make sure everything was okay. I’m sure the police wouldn’t have been too chuffed to see me with the lights taped up and no indicators but I never got caught.

The week after Carnaby I had my first of many races at Knockhill in Fife, where I finished second in my first event of the day, which was the 500cc production race. I then won the invitation race, which was for the top fifteen in each production class, later on in the afternoon. I was up against bigger bikes like Suzuki GSX1000s and I remember it was future world endurance champion Brian Morrison’s first ever race day. He won the big production class and went on to have a successful career in the British championships and in World Superbike as well as in endurance racing.

I got £70 for that invitation win which was great money considering I was taking home about £80 a week from the electricity board, where I had been working since the beginning of 1981. And I got £40 for finishing second in the proddie race so I took home more than a week’s wages. I mean, the thrill of racing was more than enough but to get money for doing it too? I couldn’t believe it.

My mum was there to see me win that day. By then she had accepted that I was going to go racing anyway and she was never really against it in the way my dad probably would have been.

I actually got a bollocking from Jimmy Rae after that race because I started waving my arms and legs frantically over the finish line when I realised I had won and I suppose he must have thought it was dangerous. I don’t think I was even aware that I was doing it though, because I was so ecstatic.

That night I went down to The Pines pub for a few drinks and danced the night away to Soft Cell and Simple Minds or whatever New Romantic music was being played at the time.

I did the full season of the 500cc Scottish Production Championship in 1981 and at one stage it looked as if I might actually win it. However, lack of experience caught me out a few times, especially in the wet, and I eventually finished second which I suppose was still pretty good for a first attempt.

The championship was only held over three circuits, because that’s all Scotland had to offer. We raced at Knockhill, East Fortune and Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy and that place was a total nightmare. Donnie McLeod, my future team-mate in the Silverstone Armstrong squad once said you can only sign the entry form for Beveridge Park once and then your hand won’t do it again! He wasn’t far wrong.

It’s a left-handed circuit that runs through a couple of parks and it’s pretty fast, certainly too fast for the state of the track and the number of trees and obstacles round about it. A lot of people got killed there and it just wasn’t fit to race on. On one of the corners you had to stick your head through a hedge because that was the racing line. But the classic corner was the one that had the main road as the run off area! If you overshot, you went onto the main road, round a roundabout and then back onto the track again. It was totally mad. I had always wanted to do that just for a laugh because I had seen lots of sidecars doing it but at the same time I was always after a decent result so I never got round to doing it. Knowing me I’d probably have got lost and gone right into town!

I also raced at some events in the north of England like Silloth, which was an airfield circuit about fifteen miles west of Carlisle and where Steve Hislop’s brother Gary was tragically killed. I won the 500 Production Club Championship there in my first year, which I was pretty chuffed with. Croft was another English circuit I raced at and I actually won there on a proper racing bike. I rode a Yamaha TZ350 which belonged to a guy named Alex Beith who ran a car auction business in Glasgow and who I had gotten to know quite well. He was going to sell the bike and knew I was doing all right at the racing so he said ‘What about racing it to help me sell it?’ So I rode it at Knockhill and finished third, then I won on it at Silloth and then again at Croft so the year ended on a high note for me – and the bike sold straight after that race at Croft too.

It was a nice bike to ride because it had a Spondon chassis and it handled really well. After riding production bikes, I couldn’t believe the power of the thing – I thought it was going to pull my arms off. A lot of riders feel like that when they get on a real race bike for the first time and I was no exception, it was just awesome. My Yamaha RD350 probably had a top speed of around 110mph and it didn’t really accelerate very fast either so the lightness and the power of the TZ350 came as a real shock to me. I hadn’t even sat on it until I got to Knockhill for the race meeting and in those days we only got ten minutes of practice to set the bikes up so that was all the time I had on it before I raced. I knew there and then that I had to get a proper racing bike for myself. They were just in a different league and made the RD feel really slow and boring.

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.