Dave Molyneux: The Racer's Edge: Memories of an Isle of Man TT Legend

Introduction

The 37¾ – mile Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) mountain circuit is widely recognized as the toughest motor racing venue anywhere in the world. Originally conceived as a test of endurance for road-going motorcycles, the now legendary Tourist Trophy races were first run in 1907 and are still reckoned to be among the hardest of any on racing machinery. If a motorcycle can survive the unique rigours of the Isle of Man’s mountain circuit, it can survive anywhere. Coupled with this, the course (an otherwise ordinary set of roads in use throughout the year) presents unique challenges to the rider. It climbs from 100 feet above sea level to nearly 2,000 feet at its highest point. The course is lined with trees, telegraph poles, stone walls and houses, meaning that the margins for error vary from slight to nonexistent.

Two things make the Isle of Man TT an unparalleled event. One is the unique atmosphere on the Island during two weeks in May and June each year, when biking enthusiasts from across the world gather on this tiny patch of earth. In 2006 MotorCycle News described the TT as the ‘number one must-see’ event in the annual motorcycling calendar, ahead of the British round of Moto GP and World Superbikes. The second factor in the equation is the sheer weight of motorcycling heritage which this event possesses, encapsulated by the spectacular series of silver mercury trophies for which riders compete. The TT mountain course is the oldest motorcycle racing circuit in the world which is still in use, and commentating legend Murray Walker has stated in the past that no other comparable motorsport event has as much history as does the Isle of Man TT.

Motorcycle and sidecar combinations have competed in this arena in two distinct phases. The first, from 1922 to 1929, ended because of pressure from manufacturers. They felt that sidecar racing was not helping their image as a reliable and safe means of family transport, an image which at the time they were trying to promote. The second phase began with the reintroduction of sidecar racing in 1955, and continues to the present day. This branch of motor sport is in many ways unique. Unlike any other form of motorcycle racing, driver and passenger must work closely as a team. The passenger must display great ability as he shifts his weight around to ensure maximum adhesion of the tyres on the track. In terms of sheer spectacle, there is little to compete with modern sidecar racing. The machines themselves have altered much from their early antecedents. The frame of the bike has become low and squat. The tyres have become much wider than those of a standard motorcycle in order to increase grip. The rider (or driver as he is frequently described) usually adopts a kneeling, rather than sitting position.

The 1950s saw British stars such as Eric Oliver shine in the sidecar TT, but both this decade and the 1960s were dominated by German competitors, mainly on BMW outfits. In the 1970s, the German dominance of the event was broken to a certain extent with the emergence of British competitors such as George O’Dell, Sidecar World Champion in 1977, and Jock Taylor, who was World Champion in 1980. While the loss of World Championship status in 1976 saw the TT decline in importance for solo machinery, the change had the opposite effect upon the sidecar classes. Today it could be argued that the sidecar events at the Isle of Man TT represent the pinnacle of that sport in Great Britain. For many years now the force majeure at the TT has been Dave Molyneux, a man who has, largely through his perseverance and dedication, come to dominate the event. Molyneux is one of the most prolific sidecar racers in British history. His racing career has spanned an incredible thirty-one years. His tally of fourteen TT wins makes him not only the most successful sidecar competitor in the history of the event, but also the most successful Manx competitor and joint third most successful competitor ever with Mike Hailwood, after Joey Dunlop and John McGuinness. He has also competed in the British Sidecar Championships, Grand Prix races and other international events.

His natural talent and ability as a sidecar driver, together with his ambition and hunger for success, have been proved again and again on race tracks around the world. His will to succeed and to overcome problems has been blunted neither by racing injuries nor by financial difficulties. However, Molyneux has carved out an equally impressive reputation as a constructor, and his machines are in demand in the racing world. Molyneux is also perhaps one of the more controversial figures in British motorcycle racing. Sometimes outspoken, and often forthright in his views, he believes in speaking what is on his mind. Undoubtedly, his views have at times earned him unpopularity in the paddock, while his need to achieve total concentration before a race and his steely determination to win have earned him the nickname ’Moody Moly’ among certain commentators. A complex character, his outlook on life and racing has been coloured by personal tragedies and circumstances.

Two milestones in the production of this book remain fixed in my mind. The first took place one bright Friday morning in the early summer of 2006; I was listening to the radio in my kitchen, when breakfast-time news announced that during the previous evening’s practice session, sidecar TT favourite and current lap record holder Dave Molyneux had been seriously injured in a high-speed crash. His machine had been burned out in the catastrophic accident and as a result Molyneux himself had announced from his hospital bed his decision to abandon racing. The career of the Isle of Man’s most remarkable and prolific TT competitor appeared to be over.

Prior to that point, my contact with Dave Molyneux had been limited to a couple of phone calls, and although I had followed his career with some degree of interest I knew little about the man himself or what inspired him. A couple of weeks later and quite unexpectedly I had another call from Molyneux. He had a number of things he wanted to discuss with me, and invited me to his home in Regaby. This was the second milestone! Moly had been mulling over the question of what to do with his fire-damaged sidecar. This completely self-built outfit had won three TT races and smashed the lap record twice. Rather than attempt to rebuild it, he had decided instead to offer this historic machine to the Manx Museum. I was impressed by his appreciation of the importance of the heritage which surrounds the TT races, and which draws visitors annually from across the world, and fascinated as the story of what had inspired him unfolded. It subsequently became clear as we chatted that he had not after all decided to quit racing, and indeed that the Molyneux story was far from over. I really felt the sensation that day that here I was in the presence of someone who had not only made TT history but was actually still making it. It turned out that I wasn’t wrong. Molyneux bounced back from that potentially career-ending crash to take centre stage at the 2007 Centenary TT, and in front of the biggest crowd the Island had seen in a quarter of a century, won both of the sidecar races.

Two things ultimately stemmed from that Regaby meeting. The first was that this historic machine eventually became part of the collections of Manx National Heritage, preserved for posterity as a lasting visual testament to this remarkable man’s engineering ability and achievement. The second was that the more I found out about Molyneux himself, the more fascinated I became. Occasionally history produces men whose steely determination (and indeed physical bravery) propels them forward to achieve great things against overwhelming odds. Such men are often more respected than liked – think of men such as Guy Gibson and Douglas Bader to name but two – and I could see interesting parallels here with Molyneux. I became determined to persuade him to set out his story in a published book, as an accompanying written record. What happened next is what you are about to read: the story ... so far!

Matthew Richardson

Chapter 1

Cutting My Teeth

Some people say that a thing is in their blood; well, in my case racing sidecars really is in mine. I was born in Douglas on the Isle of Man, in the Jane Crookall Maternity Home to be precise, on 21 November 1963. I grew up at Glen Maye, on the outskirts of Patrick, in the west of the Island. I was the oldest of six children of John and Joan Molyneux. There was myself, Kevin, Judy, Georgina, Graham and Allan. My mother and father bought a house in Kirk Michael when I was about three years old, called Tower House. It was a hectic home, really hectic. There always seemed to be babies and kids around throughout my early life; I grew up with it. I guess I felt it was a pain in the ass growing up with all the screaming and kids running around.

My dad was a motor mechanic, he started sidecar racing when I was two years old. That, I suppose, is why I’ve got an obsession with it. I was in it, with it and loved it straight away. My earliest memories are of workshops and more especially of going away to race events. My father raced with a guy called Ernie Leece from Peel, they were very successful together; they did well at the TT and got a third place in 1970, and I remember going away with them as early as four or five years old to Oulton Park, places like that, and seeing all the old pudding-basin helmets lined up on the pit wall. I’ve got vivid recollections of that kind of thing – I took it home with me, took it to bed with me even! When I was a kid I would lie down beside my trike and pretend to be a passenger on a sidecar. Motorbikes were it as far as I was concerned. I remember when I started school at Kirk Michael Primary at four years old, I recall kicking and screaming like mad on the first day, and the headmaster carrying me in, and sitting me in the corner with a load of motorbike books, because he knew that was what I was into; he knew all my family were, at any rate. So there was me, happy for the rest of the day. I’ve still got one of my early school books. I must have been about six or seven when I wrote in it, ’At the weekend we played sidecars, I made the sidecar and it went off like a bomb.’ Years later that page from my exercise book was used by Honda as an illustration in one of their souvenir booklets. Even at that young age I was obsessed with building and racing sidecars. But I never really liked school, and the more it went on the more I hated it. At ten or eleven years old, I’d skive off school at any given opportunity, sometimes going to work with my dad. In the late 1970s my dad teamed up and raced with another sidecar driver called George Oates. Every Wednesday night after work or school, dad and I would go to George Oates’s house on the Ballamoda Straight to work on the sidecar. We also spent the day there every Sunday working on the outfit – Sunday was sidecar day – I was friends with George’s son Howard and he and I used to have great fun, riding on our bikes.

When I got to ten years old, my mum and dad started going through some real difficult times and I was aware of that, I could see it all happening and going wrong. The last thing I wanted was to see them split, but they did, inevitably, and me and all my brothers and sisters went with my mum. My mum and dad got back together some months later, until one day during the summer holidays. My dad and I were up at four o’clock in the morning and off to work, and my mum would never get up and see us out to the door at that time of the morning. But this particular morning she was, and she was crying, and I thought, ‘Oh no, something’s going on here.’ At six o’clock that evening – fourteen hours later, and my dad must have been sitting on this all that time – we were driving through the Devil’s Elbow on the coast road back to Kirk Michael, and my dad turned and said to me, ’Look, David, I’ve got some news,’ and I could tell by his voice there was shit going on, and I said, ‘Is she gone, dad?’ – I came straight out with it – and he replied, ‘Yeah, she’s packed and gone.’ I just answered, ‘Well, we’ll manage, won’t we?’ and that was that. I went to live with my father then. He was my hero, and because I’d felt so strongly about their first split, I think they must have talked it over and decided that I was going to live with my dad from now on. I looked on us as best pals, not dad and son. But as a result of the split we moved out of Tower House, which is still to this day my favourite home of all the places that I’ve lived in.

Another of my earliest memories was of being at the TT with my dad in 1976, and watching George O’Dell.¹ My father was competing, actually, and I went up into the Grandstand to watch him in the Thursday afternoon practice session. I remember there was a yellow and green bike, with number 2 on it, bloody shrieking past! They had no silencers on them or anything like that in those days, and this bike did three laps that afternoon, the driver simulated a race on that practice session. I didn’t have a programme and I didn’t know who number 2 was. My only thought was, ‘Jesus, this thing is incredible.’ This bike, the noise of it, how it looked, everything about it was in another world. It just blew me away, and when my dad came in from practice all hot and sweaty, puffing and panting, and I ran up to him and said, ‘Dad’, he must have thought, ‘Oh, the young fella’s all excited to see me.’ Instead I straight away asked him, ‘Who’s number 2 with the yellow and green bike?’ and he just muttered back, ‘Uh, that’ll be O’Dell’! That was it then, I read every newspaper article, every interview with him that I could find, and I just followed him. In 1977 I actually met O’Dell – his machine was in yellow and red livery that year because his sponsor had changed now from BP to Shell – and one night during TT practice week he was testing on the Ballamoda Straight. Riders weren’t supposed to do that, because it was just an ordinary stretch of road, but lots of them did in those days! He wasn’t the only one there that night; Phil Read was there as well, letting rip up and down with one of the solo bikes which he rode at the TT that year. I was at George Oates’s house that night and we heard the sidecar roaring up and down. Howard Oates, George’s son, and myself were both big sidecar fans and we both rushed out to see what was happening. Howard and I got the chance to sit on the bike, and O’Dell’s passenger Kenny Arthur took a photo of us, using my Box Brownie camera.

That year, 1977, my dad and George Oates were seventh in the first leg of the TT, and George O’Dell won that race. He went on to book his place in history that year because he went on from the TT to win the 1977 Sidecar World Championship. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I loved it not only because O’Dell won, and he was my hero back then, but also because my father and George Oates were right in the thick of it, they were dicing with British champions and World Championship contenders. At that time you could easily say they were the best of the rest, because they were on far inferior equipment compared to these other guys. I’m sure if they’d had that equipment they would have been level pegging, but they didn’t and that was that. But it was a hell of an exciting period for me, to be so captivated by these guys – there was Rolf Steinhausen² and Rolf Biland,³ people like that. It was the era when the oily British engines were just giving way to the sleek new Japanese motors which would dominate sidecar racing from then on, a classic age in many ways. In fact if I could have been born thirty years or so earlier, it would have been my dream to race on those kinds of machines against those people.

One day later that same year, and I remember being really hacked off about this, my dad told me, ‘You’re going to have to go and stay at your auntie’s while I go to the Ulster Grand Prix,’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t get that, because I’ve gone to England racing with you, I’ve been everywhere racing with you, and you won’t bloody take me to this!’ It was like a real lover’s spat, like me saying to the wife, ‘You’re not coming on this trip!’ So I was real hacked off, but anyway I went to stay at my auntie’s. I loved being there because it was up in Dalby where my dad grew up. I was staying with his brother; they had a huge family of eight kids, and it was great, like a big adventure playground.

So he dropped me off there, and I remember being really arsy and grumpy, and he said, ‘Right, tara then,’ and I don’t think I even said ’tara’ or goodbye to him. It sounds strange now, but while my dad was away I went shopping in Douglas with my Auntie Jen and I remember that I bought a keyring in one of the tourist shops with a picture of dad and George on it. Then I went to buy a small silver cup, the sort of thing you give on Father’s Day, with ‘World’s Best Dad’ on it. But I didn’t buy it. I put it back down because for some reason that I can’t explain I had a very bad feeling about it ... Well, my auntie didn’t have a phone, back then in 1977, and less than a week later the police came to the door. The news wasn’t good: John’s had a real bad accident, he’s in Belfast Infirmary fighting for his life. I can remember them to this day, two policemen standing there, and I got called through, I remember my auntie was crying. Two days later he was dead. I didn’t see him again; I didn’t go over there to Belfast. Money was tight, and I suppose they thought I was too young to handle that sort of thing. He was on a life support machine, and he wasn’t even aware of what was going on. George Oates, the driver of the bike, had died instantly. They kept my father alive for two days, but he had serious head injuries.

I was a real bad-tempered little bastard anyway in those days, and I think