NEW SERIES
Famed for his Norton rotary years, Trev rode all sorts of stuff with strong results
Remember how you got into biking? Trevor Nation does: emember how you got into biking? Trevor Nation does:“It’s all Giacomo Agostini’s fault. As a kid I had a poster above my bed of that famous picture of him at Ago’s Leap on the Isle of Man. It started a passion for the TT.” This passion would see Nation racing there some years later.
As a teenager, he worked at Duffield Motorcycles in Salisbury and did a couple of trackdays at Brands Hatch in 1976. Then it was time to go racing: “I had a T20 Suzuki, drum brake and all, and a T500, both bought as crashed bikes. I started out at North Gloucester and Bemsee meetings. I was hopeless at first. If I couldn’t see around a corner I wouldn’t go fast. I had to lose that instinct to go better.”
Like every nascent racer, Nation soon felt the need for faster machinery. Yamahas were the order of the day for ambitious club racers. “I worked in a dealership that didn’t do Yamahas,” says Nation. “So I wound up with a 250cc Suzuki kart engine in a Yamaha race frame. It was fast but kept throwing me off. Then Duffield Motorcycles let me have the engine from a crashed GS1000 and I put it in a P&M frame.”
Having gone to the Island as a spectator in 1978, Nation intended to do the Manx GP in 1979. “Just prior to that, I crashed in a race at Keevil and lost a little toe, so I had to wait until 1980 to race on the Isle of Man.
Oxford Products entered me in the TT on the P&M. It was unusual then to go straight to the TT without doing a Manx. I was sixth quickest on only my third ever practice lap, but I crashed on my fourth at Sarah’s Cottage. I spent a night in hospital with mild concussion. I finished 14th in the F1 race having started number 80, and 21st in the Senior having started number 81. A decent debut,” says Nation.
A decent debut indeed, and as he learned the Island over the next few years, the results got better. The bikes and the connections broadened too, with Nation also riding Sports Motorcycles 600 and 750 Ducatis. “It was great to be involved with Steve Wynne; what with the Hailwood connection and all,” says Nation.
Our man was third in the 1984 Senior on an ex-Bob Smith Suzuki RG500 leased from its owner and won the 251-750cc Production event on a Honda CBX750.
The Senior was not without drama. “I was third at the start of the fifth lap then it seized at The Highlander. I pulled the clutch in and coasted for a bit. What do I do now? I’m third in a Senior TT. So I let the clutch out and it went again, although not before Roger Marshall had overtaken me putting me in fourth place. But Joey Dunlop had made a mistake on his
