From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 70 – first published in 2018.
Story: Peter Laverty • Photos: Stan Shephard
Having recently clinched his first World Championships, the 1962 250cc and 350cc, Jim Redman arrived in Perth on January 13, 1963, looking slightly worse for wear.
Competing at East London in his adopted home of South Africa just weeks prior, Redman crashed his works 250 Honda and was lucky to escape with severe bruising. The fall made a mess of the Honda, which was hastily patched up, and his crash helmet was destroyed. Despite his physical condition, London-born Redman stayed on until midnight as guest of the West Australian Motorcycle Association, then boarded a flight to Melbourne, arriving at 6.30am. One hour later he was on a plane to Sydney, to be greeted by Tom Phillis Senior, who took him to collect two bikes sent by Honda for his Australian tour; a works 125 twin and a four-cylinder 250.
Redman had come up the hard way in Britain. His father committed suicide in 1949 and his mother died from a cerebral haemorrhage less than a month later. At just 17 years of age, Jim and his elder sister had to take over the household and look after their young twin siblings. He worked several jobs to support the family, and had to fight off the demands of the Defence Department who insisted he be conscripted for two years. Redman argued strenuously that the army pay would make it impossible to keep the family fed, but the bureaucrats insisted he join up or face the consequences, so he made plans to flee the country. After three years of wrangling, he migrated to Rhodesia, where he was joined soon after by his sisters and brother. It was a far better lifestyle than in post-war Britain, and he soon got involved in a car selling business and began racing in 1954 on a Triumph twin.
Some success came his way but the South African racing scene was fairly small, so in 1958 he decided to try his luck racing in Europe, riding the ubiquitous Nortons and a 125 Ducati. Like everyone else, he longed for a works ride, but it was 1960 before he got aboard a Honda, and then only because lead rider Tom Phillis had crashed in practice for the Dutch TT. On Tom’s recommendation, Redman was given a start on the 125 and impressed with some forceful riding before finishing fourth. While Tom recovered Redman continued on the 125 Honda, but when Australian Bob Brown was killed in practice at the West German Grand Prix, he was drafted into the team proper. It was a brutal time; on average six riders per year lost their lives on the European circuits.
Redman’s summer holiday had largely come about from discussions with Paul Reed, who at that stage was the Victoria’s delegate to the Auto Cycle Council of Australia (ACCA, now Motorcycling Australia). It was originally envisaged that Redman would form a Honda team for the tour with Tom Phillis, but when Tom died in the Isle of Man in June 1962, that plan dissolved. In a letter to Paul Reed, Redman said, “The main reason that I am so keen on a trip to Australia is that I would like to have a good look around the country with a view to living there when I stop coming to Europe to ride. Tom (Phillis) has told me so much about Australia and thought there was nowhere in the world to touch it, so I am dead keen on having a look for myself.” Jim was also very friendly with Victorian Ron Miles, who planned to return from Europe to race at home in the 1963/64 summer season. But like Tom Phillis, Miles failed to see the year out, crashing fatally at the Ulster Grand Prix. It was Ron Miles’ brother Bill who put Redman in touch with Paul Reed.
“Honda agreed to make a 125 twin and a 250 four available to him”, says Paul Reed, “but he was to pay for all his transport and maintenance costs. Jim Redman turned out to be a thorough gentleman. He was contracted to the ACCA to ride at four events in Australia for which he would be paid four hundred pounds. I first saw him compete at Hume Weir. After his first practice session on the 125, he said, ‘Who was that maniac on the Bantam? I couldn’t get away from him.’ I told him it was Bert Flood, and the bike wasn’t exactly a Bantam, but a 125 Bultaco go-kart motor in the Bantam frame. Jim didn’t have to worry about Bert in the race, as he was in hospital after crashing head-first into a concrete post in a later practice session. Bert’s low-crown Cromwell helmet was split in two and was impounded by the Clerk of Course and used as evidence in the banning of Cromwell helmets in Australia. Jim was to ride in four states, finishing up in Perth before returning to Japan for the next season’s testing, but the factory insisted he must return to Japan before the WA event, which he did. The ACCA president ruled that Jim would not receive any of the four hundred pound ACCA grant because he had not ridden in all four events. Jim was devastated, as he was already well over his budget because of the air fares for himself and the two bikes. As Victoria’s ACCA delegate, I circulated a motion of dissent with the president’s ruling, and Jim was eventually paid three hundred pounds for the three events he participated in.”
Redman’s Australian ‘tour’ began on January 27th 1963 at Hume Weir, when the sweltering heat, combined with oil and rubber on the track from the previous weekend’s car races, caused numerous falls. But Redman was not one of them, squirting away to an easy win in both the 125cc and 250cc races, then beating Eric Hinton to take out the 350cc race as well, despite the 250-4 developing a gearbox glitch which forced him out of the 500 race. He was due to compete in the Victorian TT at Calder on February 10th, but torrential rain forced the cancellation of the meeting. Despite the atrocious conditions, Redman had declared himself willing to race, stating, “The conditions were not any worse than often experienced at UK meetings.”
And so Jim’s second Australian appearance became the much-vaunted opening meeting for the new circuit at Oran Park, near Camden in Sydney’s south. With only the annual Bathurst meeting, road racing in New South Wales was going through a torrid time, but in front of a very healthy crowd, the Oran Park meeting, which carried the title of NSW GP, gave the sport a much-needed boost. The circuit had been hastily pushed into life using a narrow 1.25 mile lap that lasted only for 1963 before being lengthened to the 1.5 mile layout that would remain in place for decades. It was tight and short, but the undulating nature of the terrain made it a spectacular arena that was universally popular with riders.’
Not surprisingly, Redman walked away with the 125 race, beating Kel Carruthers on Clem Daniel’s MV Agusta, then repeated the dose in the 250 GP after disposing of early leader Carruthers, mounted on the earlier model 250-4 Honda. He was expected to make short work of the 350 GP as well, but found himself relegated to third when Eric Hinton rode around him on the second lap, and took the lead from Carruthers soon after. Redman and Hinton soon began a spirited battle for the lead which lasted until Eric clipped the rear wheel of a lapped rider and went down, producing an audible groan from the crowd. He made it a clean sweep by taking out the 500 race, leading home Jack Ahearn, Hinton and Ron Toombs.
Redman was on a roll when he arrived at Longford, Tasmania – then the fastest race circuit in the country – on March 2nd. After scoring easy wins in both the 250 and 350 races on the Saturday, Redman had a day off before the balance of the program was contested on Monday, but this was a track where horsepower really counted. The 125cc and 250cc races were combined, leaving the works 125cc Honda sitting idle, but at the last minute New Zealander John Hempleman, Redman’s great friend from the Continental Circus, was given permission to start in the 125 race. Despite having only one lap of practice on the unfamiliar machine, Hempleman scorched through after a slow start to win the class from Allan Osborne’s Honda and Len Tinker’s MV Agusta.
In the 500 race, Jack Ahearn, on his 5-speed Manx Norton fitted with a fairing festooned in “shark’s teeth”, motored off into the distance while Redman battled with Ken Rumble’s Norton until the Honda ran out of sparks, putting him out for the day. Ahearn was masterful, clipping four seconds from the lap record held by Carruthers, and lapping just six seconds off the magic 100 mph average.
Redman and most of his rivals had a week to cool their heels in Tasmania before the final leg of his tour, at Symmons Plains, just a few miles from Longford, on March 10. With the 250-4’s ignition now back to full health, Redman cakewalked the 125, 250 and 350 races and was battling heroically on his 250 with Ahearn’s Norton when the Honda developed an oil leak that coated the rear tyre. A violent tank-slapper ensued, sending him sliding off the circuit. The Honda was only lightly damaged, but another crash helmet was consigned to the garbage bin as Ahearn swept to victory. That could have been the end of the day, but there was still the Tom Phillis Memorial Handicap to contest, and Redman, who had raised more than £3,000 to support the family after Tom was killed in the Isle of Man, was not going to miss that. He started on the 125 Honda and very nearly pulled off the win, eventually finishing second to local T. Montcrieff on a BSA. There was no time for commiserations or celebrations, as he was whisked away to the airport to catch a flight to Sydney, then a connection to Japan to begin testing for the European season. The pair of Hondas was taken back to Sydney by Bob Lewis, who would be Redman’s mechanic in Europe for the year.
Tasmania must have appealed to Redman, because in December 1963 he was back “for a holiday” with his wife Marlene and 2-year-old son Jimmy. Redman had just clinched his second 250cc World Champion with a sensational ride at the brand new Suzuka circuit (the first championship event held in Japan) where he defeated the favoured Yamahas. As a reward, Honda provided him with and a 250-4 Honda, and one of the new 305cc CR77 racers that were supposed to go into production, but never did. Honda no doubt had their reasons for not proceeding with the CR77 (and its smaller brother, the CR72), but in view of the interest that had been generated in these models, it came as a big disappointment. By now, the 7R AJS and 350 Manx Norton had long been out of production, and the CR77 in particular would have provided an excellent replacement to bolster the traditional 350cc, or ‘Junior’ class.
Redman’s return to Symmons Plains certainly resonated with fans, and a bumper crowd turned up for the combined car and motorcycle meeting. With only local opposition to play with, and despite the tar surface melting in patches in the summer sun, Redman won as he pleased, while locals Dennis Wing, Stan ‘Ike’ Chenhall and Ian Tilley tried their hardest. Immediately after the meeting Redman and the pair of Hondas were aboard a plane to Sydney, then onto a freight steamer bound for New Zealand for a couple of meetings prior to more commitments in USA.
After gathering six World Championships in the 250 and 350 classes, Redman’s racing career came to an end when he crashed the new 500cc Honda (on which he had won the first two rounds in Germany and Netherlands) at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix and suffered a broken arm. He announced his retirement from motorcycle racing but Honda provided him with one of their Formula One cars to contest the German F1 GP in August. When his Honda team mate Ronnie Bucknam wrecked his car in practice, he took over Redman’s car, which Redman surrendered without protest. He had never raced a car before, let alone a Formula One car, and typically at the Nurburgring it was cold and wet. He later said in an interview about his short-lived F1 career, “I didn’t mind getting killed while racing, but I wanted it to be an accident.”
