SIDECARS

Growing up in the Isle Of Man in the 60’s as a sport-daft youngster meant being starved of the regular opportunity to see at first-hand the best of British sport, at least if you are talking football, cricket, athletics, etc. But there was one saving grace, the T.T.!
Looking back at those days, I know for sure that I wouldn’t swap the memories of Hailwood, Agostini, Taveri, etc for those of Geoff Hurst, Freddie Trueman and David Hemery but my list of early T.T. heroes also included Camathias, Scheidegger, Deubel & Co. Why the sidecars?
Perhaps it was because the majority of the top crews camped in the area behind the paddock and so their autographs were easy to get. I think that every autograph collector had the signatures of Otto Kolle, Georg Auerbacher and the ever-popular Heinz Luthringshauser. In truth I can’t really explain the initial attraction of the three-wheelers except to say that forty years on it remains strong with Molyneux, Bell & Co, the current holders of the ‘hero’ tag!
I can remember being at the bottom of Bray Hill for the Monday of Race Week in ’60, ’61 and ’62, but cannot honestly say that I can recall much of the sidecar races. With around just 25 to 30 starters and the majority of lap times over 30 minutes, perhaps they weren’t too exciting compared to the huge numbers of new exotic Japanese machinery then on the circuit. When you haven’t reached your teens, a year is a long time, but when 1963 came round I was at secondary school and far more importantly had become good friends with a couple of other T.T. ‘nuts’. The Monday of T.T. week saw the three of us walking out to Braddan Bridge with the other two declaring their support for reigning world champion Max Deubel. Being contrary even at that age, I was a Florian Camathias fan. Although Deubel had won in 1961 and was a double world champion compared to Camathias’ endless list of runner-up finishes, it was obviously not going to be a walkover. Deubel had crashed in practice and passenger Emil Horner was a non-starter so Deubel had enlisted the support in the chair of driver Barry Dungworth whose own passenger had also been ruled out by a practice crash. The ‘new’ pairing could come only eighth but Camathias still had his fellow Swiss, Fritz Scheidegger to contend with, but on this occasion Camathias had his day and won by nearly 40 seconds. It was to be his only T.T. win, but a series of escapades added to the Camathias legend, including the time when he discovered when going down Bray Hill one practice session, that his passenger was still at the Grandstand!
But in 1964, the little Swiss capped it all. The story goes that after four runner-up spots in the world championship, he hit on the idea of getting one of the famous Gilera engines; though some years old, they had been used in the ’63 T.T. by John Hartle and Phil Read. On a visit to the factory at Arcore, Camathias’ Swiss-Italian wife did the talking and the rest is part of T.T. folklore. Our spectator spot was now between Braddan and Union Mills, on the right-hand hedge by the fast left-hand ‘kink’ and the sound of Camathias and Herzig on that Gilera with that beautiful red and white fairing, will forever live in the memory – check out the Sound Stories recordings if you can. Unfortunately, having led in the early stages, fuel starvation slowed Camathias down to 15th place with Deubel winning his second T.T. Incidentally, two other finishers that day were two famous names, ‘Geordie’ Bell, father of Geoff and Ian in 11th position and Mac Hobson in 21st, Mac having begun his Isle of Man career as a solo rider back in the ’58 M.G.P. Still spectating on ‘our hedge’ the gang witnessed another Deubel victory in ’65 and at long last, a Scheidegger win in ’66. Sadly, Camathias had lost his life in a crash at Brands in late ’65 and Scheidegger was to be killed at Mallory Park in early ’67. With Deubel now retired, 1967 was to see the beginning of a new era at the head of the three-wheelers.
Georg Auerbacher was the heir apparent having finished third in each of the last three years, but ’66 had also seen the debuts of two Germans destined for T.T. glory, Klaus Enders and Siegfried Schauzu. They’d finished that race in 4th and 7th places respectively and along with Auerbacher, this trio were to dominate the next few years’ sidecar races. Now with a camera as part of the spectator kit (Cost £3 and a penny from Craine’s the Chemists on Derby Road), the problem was from where to watch AND take photos. The answer was at Governors’ Bridge in ‘The Dip’ just a few metres opposite the apex of the hairpin – an area where spectators are prohibited from watching these days. The sidecar race that year was excellent- Enders led on lap one from Auerbacher and Schauzu but dropped to third on the second lap. However Auerbacher retired on the third lap and with Schauzu having virtually made up the 20 second starting difference on Enders, it was ‘Sideways Sid’ Schauzu heading for first place. At Governors on that last lap it was obvious that he intended being first on the roads as well, throwing the outfit around the 180 degree hairpin in an attempt to cut inside Enders, but the plan nearly ended in disaster as passenger Horst Schneider fell out of the chair. It wasn’t reported in that night’s ‘T.T. Special’ or the ‘weeklies’ later in the week but I was there and captured it on film! Fortunately for Schauzu, Schneider got back on board quite quickly and proceeded to score his first T.T. victory in a long and illustrious career. That year also saw a triple Hanks presence in the results with father Fred in 22nd with sons Norman and Roy in 29th and 15th places.
1968 was the first year to feature two sidecar races as the organisers decided to respond to the thriving UK 750cc scene by running, concurrently, a separate race for the bigger engined outfits. Schauzu duly won the 500cc event after early leader Enders slowed to eighth place while Terry Vinicombe secured his place in the T.T. winners’ lists with victory in the 750 after hot favourite, Chris Vincent, retired. Second place was particularly notable as Norman Hanks with one Rose Arnold in the chair achieved a place in T.T. history. Was it really 36 years ago?! For us locals we were well chuffed to see Kirk Michael’s Ernie Leece take seventh place with John Molyneux (father of Dave) in the chair, as in those days Manx achievements were usually restricted to the MGP. The following year saw the two races run on separate days to allow the Grand Prix contestants a chance to ‘double up’. But only Siggi Schauzu survived the three laps of Saturday night’s opener to become the first sidecar driver to achieve three wins on the Mountain Circuit. By 1969 I was mobile and Monday saw me parking at the Gooseneck and walking down to one of the bends above the Waterworks. The 500cc race was expected to be a battle between Enders and Helmut Fath, the reigning world champion, on his beautiful-sounding, self-made URS machine. This time though Enders was in a class of his own and his machine did not let him down as he scored his first T.T. win at record speeds ahead of Schauzu and Fath.
The sixties were over and so was my time as a resident Manxie. Indeed, 1969 was the last year I saw every T.T. race, but even allowing for rose-tinted spectacles, I feel privileged to have seen THE great decade in T.T. history.

John Newton