INTERVIEW | RON HASLAM
He beat everyone from Phil Read to Wayne Rainey during one of the most successful, varied and prolific racing careers ever. Ron Haslam nips out of his workshop to give us the highlights
Sitting opposite me at his kitchen table, Ron Haslam is explaining what it was like being Freddie Spencer’s team-mate in the factory Honda squad. It’s riveting stuff (summary: quite difficult), but I keep getting distracted. First there’s a tortoise the size of a doormat wandering past me to harass some dogs in the lounge, then an assortment of his grandkids bustle through to find grandma, then various daughters and mechanics pop in. Britain’s friendliest, busiest family home? It’s right up there.
And at the centre of it all is Ron, the two-time world champion who raced in 110 Grand Prix, was a factory rider for Honda, Suzuki and Cagiva, and climbed onto nine 500cc GP podiums. Plus he won four British titles and two TTs (one, technically, but we’ll come to that). Ron’s oblivious to the mayhem swirling around him, only occasionally asking if one of the dogs is snoring too loudly for my tape recorder. There’s something deeply reassuring about the fact that even a bona fide racing legend gets completely ignored by his family – the only time anyone pays the 67-year-old any attention is when a head pops round the kitchen door and asks him to move his aeroplane.
Once back from the outbuildings on his Derbyshire farm, Ron continues reliving 1983, when his career went stratospheric. From riding for Honda Britain he went straight to a factory Honda ride in 500cc GPs. “That was fantastic,” he says between sips of tea. “I really enjoyed the three-cylinder Honda. The only downside was that my team-mate was Freddie Spencer [the 21-year-old phenomenon would go on to win three world championships]. Everyone knows that to get any recognition you have to beat your team-mate, but what if he’s Freddie Spencer? That was hard.”
Spencer was the most natural rider Ron had ever seen. “He didn’t have to think to do anything – he could just ride whatever was in front of him. He didn’t have braking points, turn-in points, anything – he just looked at the corner and rode it. It was incredible. He went to Assen having never seen the track before, didn’t turn up on Friday practice because he was beating everyone anyway, went out on Saturday and, having had no set-up time, broke the lap record on the third lap. That’s a lot of ability.”
