Niall Mackenzie on his 500 GP contemporaries

Niall's son Taylor has a Youtube channel, in which Niall posted two videos discussing the 500c GP riders he competed against in the 80's/90's. Lots of interesting stories (including John Kocinski's toilet!) and discussion of their strengths and weaknesses.

Edited by kevins, 24 January 2022 - 13:22.

Kevins thanks for the tip on these. I managed to find the time to watch them and really enjoyed them. Mackenzie's thoughts on the riders in what is my favourite time in GPs are great. I did like some of the insights on Schwantz, but also the comments on Doug Chandler and Christian Sarron were interesting as these are riders we hear less about.

If you like the 500cc GPs of the 80s and 90s this is really great, I would recommend watching both of the videos.

Edited by brands77, 27 January 2022 - 09:53.

I found the comments on Fast Freddie Spencer most interesting. He really seemed the have the talent of a Hailwood, Ago, Roberts or Rossi, but amounted to, relatively, very little, compared to what could have been.

I kinda lost interest a bit when Sheene retired, and it seemed to disappear from the TV, in Ireland anyway. 

I did follow Sarron in the 250's so good to hear about him too!

I have heard that Freddie liked/s a drink or two. I don't know whether that was during his riding career or whether it came later, after he retired. Certainly reading some of the American websites, people have noted that his commentary on GPs for the US tv seemed to suggest he may have had a couple of stiffeners before coming on air.

Freddie also was one of the first riders, if not the first, to suffer tendonitis in his wrists, and pretty much every MotoGP rider nowadays has this as soon as they move into MotoGP and has surgery to address it, often multiple times. Maybe the surgery then wasn't as good as it is now. Many have said that doing both the 250cc and 500cc in the same year was what caused it and that was the year he had the brutal V4 in '85 rather than the triple in '83. It must have been tough to know he could do things on the bike, but not being able to do it due to problems with his wrists.

That's interesting re the tendonitis and perhaps might make sense. As I said, I stopped following it closely after Sheene, my hero, stopped in '84 and only bought the odd MCN after that, I think it was about that time that I started to hear about riders having tendonitis operations.

I *think* there is a thread buried in here somewhere about Freddie.

Great vids! I enjoyed watching. One thing I noticed... he said Randy ma-MO-la. Now, I grew up in Germany and everyone here pronounced the name ma-MO-la, but ever since I heard it pronounced as MA-mola by an American I have been training myself to pronounce it "correctly"... and now I am thoroughly

I have heard that Freddie liked/s a drink or two. I don't know whether that was during his riding career or whether it came later, after he retired.

Not during his riding career, I'm pretty sure. He most obviously enjoyed "clean living", and all he ever drank was (allegedly) Dr. Pepper's  soft drink (some things stick in your mind forever, not least because Dr. Pepper wasn't available in Germany back then, and you couldn't just google what it is!)