lee
12-24-2008, 10:59 AM
No one ever told Graeme Crosby what to do. Croz liked to ride motorcycles insanely fast and he liked a drink. Sometimes he combined the two, even on the Isle of Man.
The lairy Kiwi was the last racer who could do it all - in 1981 he won the Daytona 200, the Suzuka Eight Hours, the FI IT and scored a 500 GP podium. The following year he finished second in the 500 world championship behind Franco Uncini. The riders immediately behind him were Freddie Spencer, King Kenny Robens and Barry Sheene. That year Croz was at the height of his powers but he decided he'd had enough of GP paddock politics, so he quit racing, headed home to New Zealand and started flying planes. Because that's what he wanted to do.
159
Croz was always a maverick. When he first hit Europe in 1979 the British FI championship was all about Honda's mega-trick RCBlooos with lightweight racing frames and aerodynamic bodywork laboriously fabricated in Honda's hallowed race depanment. So Croz rocked up at Brands on the rattiest heap of a Moriwaki ZIOOO streetbike and gave Honda's Ron Haslam the fright of his life; it looked like some punter had dragged his bike out of the car park and sneaked onto t~e track. The fans loved Croz and a legend was born.
Over the next few years Crosby won just about everything going apan from a 500 GP, though he did score ten podiums. His race results were unique but so too was his lifestyle. Croz admits to getting on the lash at the IT, waking the next morning with a sickening combination of hangover and vicious pre-IT butterflies. Being Croz he would go straight into a six-lap IT without eating a thing. He was also a legendary trasher of rentacars. The racing world will not see his like again.
The lairy Kiwi was the last racer who could do it all - in 1981 he won the Daytona 200, the Suzuka Eight Hours, the FI IT and scored a 500 GP podium. The following year he finished second in the 500 world championship behind Franco Uncini. The riders immediately behind him were Freddie Spencer, King Kenny Robens and Barry Sheene. That year Croz was at the height of his powers but he decided he'd had enough of GP paddock politics, so he quit racing, headed home to New Zealand and started flying planes. Because that's what he wanted to do.
159
Croz was always a maverick. When he first hit Europe in 1979 the British FI championship was all about Honda's mega-trick RCBlooos with lightweight racing frames and aerodynamic bodywork laboriously fabricated in Honda's hallowed race depanment. So Croz rocked up at Brands on the rattiest heap of a Moriwaki ZIOOO streetbike and gave Honda's Ron Haslam the fright of his life; it looked like some punter had dragged his bike out of the car park and sneaked onto t~e track. The fans loved Croz and a legend was born.
Over the next few years Crosby won just about everything going apan from a 500 GP, though he did score ten podiums. His race results were unique but so too was his lifestyle. Croz admits to getting on the lash at the IT, waking the next morning with a sickening combination of hangover and vicious pre-IT butterflies. Being Croz he would go straight into a six-lap IT without eating a thing. He was also a legendary trasher of rentacars. The racing world will not see his like again.