Hail the greatest of all

Press, 25 March 1981, Page 36

Hail the greatest of all

NZPA London Mike Hailwood, the former world motor cycle champion, died yesterday from the severe head injuries he suffered in a week-end car smash. The 40-year-old racer, perhaps the world’s greatest tnotor cycle champion, died without regaining., consciousness after the Saturday night crash in which his daughter, Michelle, aged nine, was killed.

Hailwood retired with his family to New Zealand and set up a business in Auckland, before making a racing comeback in 1978, and returning to Britain the following year for what was to be a shortlived fulltime return to the racetrack. A spokesman for the Birmingham Accident Hospital said that Hailwood had “died naturally from the very severe head injuries he received in the crash.”

Although life-support equipment had been used from the time he was admitted to the hospital’s serious injuries unit, there was “no question of any machines being turned off,” the spokesman said.

The 10-times world champion amassed a record 14 Isle of Man T.T. titles in what is reputed to be the world’s most dangerous bike race, and, in 1978 and 1979 beat riders young enough to be his sons.

In 1967 he retired from the motor cycle circuit and turned instead to the four-wheeled motor racing, driving on the formula one grand prix circuit for Surtees and McLaren without the success he had enjoyed on bikes.

He was awarded the George Cross for rescuing Swiss driver, Clay Regazzoni from his blazing car during the South African

Grand Prix in 1973, .. and the following year retired from racing when he himself received leg injuries in a crash during the German Grand Prix and had to be cut from his car.

Shortly before he finally retired in 1979 he admitted it was a mistake to have returned to the race circuit and said he had lost the urge to race.

Saying he would be relieved rather than saddened after his last race, he said at that time: “I have lost 55 close friends to this sport and car racing. That’s a lot, isn’t it? I don’t think you could lose Jiat many friends in war.”

Hailwood’s last world title, the formula one motor cycle championship which he won in 1978; is now held by a New Zealander, Graeme Crosby, who has also captured some of the British rider’s Isle of Man T.T. titles. A Christchurch man,

George Begg, who knew Mike Hailwood, said last evening that Mr Hailwood’s record spoke for itself. Mr Hailwood was a very brave person but he certainly was not fool hardy. He would be “sorely missed” in motorcycling circles. Between 1960 and 1968 Mr Hailwood was easily the most outstanding motor-cycle rider of that time,

In 1979 Mr Hailwood drove Mr Begg’s formula one Surtees car in a demonstration parade at the Lady Wigram trophy meeting.

Mr Begg said that he thought the only time Mr Hailwood had raced a motor-cycle in New Zealand had been at that same meeting. He had been forced to withdraw from a classic motor-cycle race at Wigram in 1979 when he had been riding a 1956 7R A.J.S. motor-cycle owned by Mr Begg.