Hugh Anderson's book?

[husaberg]

Who Anderson? What's he done to be worth reading about?

Not a bad bloke either.........

[merv]

Well thanks to Wellington Motorcycles having a copy in stock for me I bought the book and read it.

I knew of Hugh and saw him race in NZ on a few occasions and knew well of his winning in Europe in the 60s, but until I read the book I had no idea just what a machine he really was.

The detail he has put in the book is mind boggling and his stories of how he prepared the bikes and readied himself to ride the tracks is amazing. In the days before electronics, that everyone bitches about so much with MotoGP these days, Hugh was the computer and Suzuki were every lucky to have his talent.

The last year he won the championship on the 125 the bike had gone so well and so fast and it makes you smile when he talks of some days being the fastest bike on track in all classes - that included 350 and 500 MVs when the weather wasn't the best and even on a dry day there was times he lapped at speeds equivalent of 3rd in the 500 class.

At the Isle of Man his lap records were above 96mph when the 500s weren't much over 100mph.

Once back in New Zealand doing motorcross in the early 70s I saw him race the Yamaha SC500 and win races easily on it. No one else made that model Yamaha go so well that I remember as most found them unreliable pieces of shit. He had a way with the bikes.

He talks of finally retiring in 2009 after being taken out by someone younger at Pukekohe but politely doesn't mention the person's name. Before that he had lapped Pukekohe at 72 years of age faster than he had ever done before in his life.

I salute the guy