Well, this comes close to the best motorcycle racing book I’ve ever bought: a real treat!

With 480 large pages, there’s quantity as well as quality as author Cox weaves together a fascinating story of the large group of Australians – and a few NZers as well, like Ken Mudford & Noel McCutcheon – who took on the world’s best, while living far from home, usually on a shoe-string and taking the weekly risks involved on the circuits of 50-60 years ago.

A few of the riders featured in the book became world champions and many of them scored well-earnt victories or podium finishes. Sadly, though, too many of them didn’t come home, at a time when some circuits were surrounded by buildings and trees, medical care was patchy and safety gear very basic.

Although the Isle of Man TT was a major focus of these expats (who for cost reasons made the long trip by sea, taking 4-6 weeks each way), plenty of them opted for the better-paying non-championship race meetings that took place all round Europe at the time. And they tended to do pretty well. The tradition was to get to the UK, pick up new Nortons or AJSs if at all possible, buy a cheap (i.e.. slow & elderly) truck in which to live and travel thousands of miles and try to impress race organisers and trade sponsors.

Lots of the riders get a chapter devoted to them, from Jack Ahearn to Tom Philis and Keith Campbell: sidecar riders like Bob Mitchell feature too. Quite a few of the riders featured picked up works rides: some like Rod Coleman with British teams, but others were sinned up by MZ or Moto Guzzi or Honda.

The recollections of wines and girlfriends feature too, as they often shared the adventures and the ups and downs of circus life. Many of the riders featured raced behind the Iron Curtain with a fair bit of success, and their stories of the practical hassles of travelling through that part of Europe are fascinating. The infamous official retain to the riders’ strike at the Dutch TT in 1955 is covered too, with its devastating and quite unfair impact on the careers of guys like John Hempleman.

Don Cox’s text makes fascinating reading but whoever was responsible for the incredibly good photo selection deserves high praise too. There are hundreds of action pics and paddock scenes that really bring the book and its characters to life.
Brilliant!

Review by Mark Holman
Bike Rider Magazine April 2014