From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 88 – first published in 2020.
Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Michael Andrews, Jeff Nield, OBA archives.
The first time I met Ron Boulden he was working at Welbank Supplies, a small motorcycle accessory shop in Willoughby, a lower north shore suburb of Sydney and coincidentally, the home, at the time of the state’s largest and most active motorcycle club, Willoughby District Motor Cycle Club (WDMCC). Ron was a brash teenager, and as my late mate Michael Robinson observed, “had a voice like a wind-up alarm clock, and a laugh that could trigger a stampede”.
Even at this tender age, Ron, who came straight from school to his position as junior salesman at Welbank, was possessed of a probing mind that automatically soaked up anything and everything that may be useful later on. Welbank was owned by the husband and wife team of Cameron and Judy MacMillan, and the name came from Cameron’s profession as a wool classer, where he was later in charge of the trade’s financial side which was called the Welfare Bank. Just thought you’d like to know that. Cameron, quietly spoken, deeply thoughtful and slightly avuncular, was as different a person to young, noisy Ronald as was possible.
Ron’s parents had kept him supplied with motorcycles from an early age, beginning with the ubiquitous mini bikes and onto a variety of small Hondas that he generally thrashed through the bush or at the crazy weekend hangout at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north shore, where hundreds would gather and bikes would be going in all directions. Soon came a proper motocrosser, a Honda CR125, which he raced with great verve in club events at the Amaroo Park and Nepean dirt tracks before he was old enough to hold an open competition licence. There was also a Honda CB250 on which Ron had his first taste of road racing, at Oran Park, which was where he was introduced to Jack Ahearn by his good mate Dave Laraghy. Around the time of his 15th birthday in October 1974 Ron joined Willoughby club; a hotbed of fast riders, male and female, young and not-so-young. In the latter group was Jack Ahearn, international veteran, 500cc Grand Prix winner – a man who had been around motorcycles and motorcycle racing for his entire life. Since winding down his own racing career, Jack had helped a number of riders, and Ron became the latest to fall under his care. Jack also sold a Ducati 750 Sport to Ron’s mother Moyna, who also did much of the preparation work on the family’s stable of machines.
The Ducati was pressed into service at club road race days at Amaroo Park, but was soon deemed too slow and replaced with a new 900SS – just in time for the 1975 Castrol Six Hour Race. Despite his tender years, Ron had cut more laps around Amaroo Park’s precarious layout than most, and despite questions being raised about how one of such an age had procured an Open Competition licence, his entry placed by Welbank Supplies, was accepted by the promoters (WDMCC). Recently arrived Kiwi Rick Perry became the second rider after the original nomination, Dave Laraghy, withdrew because he considered himself too slow. Perry had quickly made a name for himself since moving to Australia, and was considerably faster than young Ron in practice, so it was decided that he would take the first stint. However while most others thumbed the button and were quickly under way, Perry repeatedly booted the Ducati before it finally chimed into life. Last away, Perry lasted just four laps before throwing the model away entering the main straight, wiping off a footrest and ancillaries. Ron’s race was over without turning a lap.
Up a notch
But Production racing just didn’t quite grab young Ron; what he wanted was one of the 350 Yamahas that were the only thing to have at that stage. So once again Moyna Boulden took charge of the next career move, and sought Jack Ahearn’s advice. Jack replied that he had just the thing; a Maxton chassis fitted with a TZ350 Yamaha engine – a neat piece of equipment – which however was still in England. So a deal was done and a few months later the Maxton arrived, Moyna handed over the cash, and Ron’s career moved up a notch. It wasn’t an instant success however, in fact the ACU knocked back his entry on the Yamaha for Bathurst on the grounds of inexperience, although he was allowed an entry in the Production Race on the Ducati. But Ron took his time and gradually gelled with the bike and the results started to come, along with renewed interest from Ahearn, who by his own admission, was constantly besieged by youngsters wanting advice. After less than six months, Ron had progressed to provisional B Grade, and Ahearn was becoming more involved as a mentor. Jack told Ron that it was no coincidence that he had survived more than two decades of international competition, and that finishing races was the first priority. “Instead of rushing up to a corner, ride through it,” he said. “The speed will come to you.”
By October 1976 Ron had breezed through the ranks to reach B-Grade, where he lasted just six months before being upgraded to A – just in time for Bathurst 1977. Ahearn added a new standard-framed TZ250C to the stable as well as the 350. Ron also decided to contest the Australian 350cc Championships in 1977, or most of it; missing the opening round in Tasmania. After placing second to Graeme McGregor at Oran Park, he scored his first A-Grade win in the South Australian round, and finished the season in third place in the Championship standings. At Bathurst in 1978, he had the 350cc GP shot to pieces in a very wet race until he threw the Yamaha away in the Esses, but still went on to take the National title by a clear margin after the six rounds. It was also a sad year when Ron’s father, who had staunchly supported his son’s racing career, died. Mother Moyna was still there however, wielding the spanners and generally running the show while Ron concentrated on the riding.
However with Jack Ahearn cutting back his interests and moving to Ballina, that career was at the crossroads, and Ron was seriously contemplating taking a break from racing until New South Wales Yamaha distributors, McCulloch of Australia, came up with the offer of a new Yamaha TZ750F for a crack at the 1979 Australian Unlimited Championship. The team was partly funded by Pepsi Cola, with that side of it directed by Vincent Tesoriero, and the squad managed to get Warren Willing, who had been trying to carve out an international career for some years and was heading to Europe for one more attempt in 1979, to help in setting up the new 750 (including fitting Lectron flat-slide carbs) before he left.
After logging plenty of practice laps at Oran Park, the team began the 1979 season with the opening ARRC round at Symmons Plains, where Rick Perry on the Team Kawasaki KR750 edged out Ron by a wheel. Then it was on to Bathurst, a meeting that has gone down in history as one of the greatest-ever at the famous track, with Ron riding a mature race and using the TZ750’s superior speed to win the Unlimited GP after a titanic battle with Graeme Crosby’s KR750 and gutsy Kiwi John Woodley’s RG500 Suzuki. However that meeting was far from smooth sailing, as Ron recounts. “In practice at Bathurst, we couldn’t stop it (the TZ750) seizing. It would seize almost every lap and we had it in bits for days. Then we discovered that someone had put a ball-valve in the petrol tank breather, which was being sucked in and blocking the fuel flow. Once we tossed that away, it went like a rocket, no more seizures.”
Boulden had high hopes of lifting the 1979 Unlimited title, particularly after the Bathurst result, but it was the year when South Australian Greg Pretty, with a well-prepared Yamaha TZ750 supplied by Pitman’s, really hit his straps. Three times in six rounds Ron finished second to Pretty, and that’s the way it went in the overall result. It had also been a hectic business year, with Ron taking a financial stake in Welbank, which in addition to the accessories, became a Yamaha dealer with new premises on the Pacific Highway at Artarmon on Sydney’s lower north shore. The business grew rapidly – as it turned out, too rapidly. “Before long, we had four shops – Artarmon, Chullora, Gosford and William Street in the inner city, plus a Hertz hire car franchise with Gary Coleman at Newcastle.”
Even with the extra pressure, Ron was ready for the 1980 season with a brand new Yamaha TZ500 to add to the 750. With Pretty trying his hand in Europe, the Pitman’s TZ750 went to the fiery Andrew Johnson, who cleaned up both Unlimited races at Bathurst ahead of Boulden, who nonetheless gave the new TZ500 Yamaha a debut win ahead of Gregg Hansford’s KR350 Kawasaki. The 500cc title chase began badly for Ron when he crashed in Tasmania while leading after the TZ500’s notoriously fragile gearbox hit a false neutral. Then he found in-form Steve Trinder’s RG500 Suzuki too much at both the Adelaide and Oran Park rounds, Trinder going on to claim the Championship. “The Yamahas (the TZ500s) weren’t really much good in the first place, it was mainly Warren Willing’s input that kept them competitive, but by 1983 they were hopelessly out-dated and we were rapidly running out of spares.” At Bathurst in 1983, Andrew Johnson, now on the three-cylinder RS500 Honda, plus flyweight Paul Lewis and Rob Phillis, both on the latest Suzuki RGB500s, scampered away in the 15-lap 500 Grand Prix, leaving Boulden to amuse himself with Tony Veitch before finishing fourth.” After four straight years of winning Bathurst’s premier class, that race result was hard to swallow.
As well as racing in the GP classes, Ron was a regular at the Castrol Six Hour Race, competing every year from 1975 to 1983. The 1975, 1976 and 1977 events were aboard Ducatis, and on a variety of Yamahas – XS1100, XJ750 and XJ900, in the subsequent years. His best result was 1981 when he finished third on a Yamaha XS100, riding with motocross star Stephen Gall.
1982/83 was another brutal business year, with the US-owned McCulloch company pulling out of their agreement to distribute Yamaha in NSW. In the interim period before Yamaha Motor Australia began operations (in NSW on July 1st and in Victoria on August 25th), Welbank became the unofficial NSW distributors for Yamaha, as Ron recalls. “We took over all of McCulloch’s stock – they just invoiced our parts account which went from a few thousand dollars to millions. We had the entire stock on a 30 day account, and were supplying the other Yamaha dealers as well. Then Yamaha Japan took over and for a while, they had to buy bikes back off us before they could stock their warehouse themselves, so we then just went back to being a Yamaha dealer.
Then it began to unravel. Ron and Judy MacMillan had driven to Newcastle in separate cars for a business meeting with Coleman, and on the return trip, Judy had a head-on accident on the M1 motorway, being killed instantly. “I was due to fly to Japan the following morning, to test a new Yamaha for the factory with a view to some rides in Europe,” says Ron. “Obviously, that did not happen and it was all hands to the pumps to keep the businesses afloat. But things were going bad after the yen floated against the Australian dollar and new bike prices went through the roof. We also had Kawasaki as well as Yamaha by then and we went from selling 75 new bikes a month at Artarmon to 4. When the effects of the Yen float really kicked in, that was the end.”
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
At the end of the 1983 season, Yamaha withdrew their road race squad, the Toshiba Yamaha Dealer Team, from the 500cc GP class, leaving their three riders – Ron, Gary Coleman and Len Willing, without rides. Both Ron and Gary decided to retire from racing. There was however, a little known episode that could have prolonged Ron’s motor sport career, not on two wheels but four. “Will Hagon (Race commentator and journalist) arranged for me to test one of the JPS BMW Touring cars for the team that was being run by Frank Gardner in Sydney. It was a very professional operation, well run and well funded by John Player, and if the test had gone OK the deal was for me to join the team full time. So I thought about it and then decided against it. I told Gardner that I was a bit sick of spending my life at race tracks and I needed to get on with forging some sort of career that was away from racing, so it never happened. Tony Longhurst got the drive. Before that, I went to England for a look and met up with Wayne Gardner, who was trying to break into the scene there. He was living out of the back of a van and could hardly make ends meet or feed himself, and I thought, ‘There’s no way I am going to do that’.”
He made a clean break from racing and motorcycles; in fact the only time he has ridden a motorcycle on a track since was at the 2015 Broadford Bike Bonanza on a TZ750 and an RZ500 Yamaha. He also survived the entire experience virtually injury-free, despite the fraught early days. Ron obviously took to heart Jack Ahearn’s early advice about riding to survive, first and foremost. And despite a few ups and downs he also carved out a very successful business career – something he always promised himself he would do – which these days sees his company as a leading player in the financial sector. In a savage market, you need to be street smart, and Ron has largely been self-taught; he always was a good listener.
