Who Was Barry Sheene?
Barry Sheene MBE was a British motorcycle racer who won the 500cc World Championship in 1976 and 1977. He remains the last Briton to have won the premier-class title. He died in 2003, aged 52.
Daytona He started Grand Prix racing in 1970 and was runner-up in the 125cc championship at his second attempt. In March 1975, during practice for the Daytona 200, a rear tyre delaminated at around 180 mph and threw him down the track; he broke his left femur, his right arm, his collarbone and two ribs. The BBC were filming. The crash and the recovery made him famous in Britain well beyond motorcycling.
Champion Seven weeks after leaving hospital he was racing again, and in 1976 he won five of the six 500cc rounds he started to take the title. He defended it in 1977 with six wins from eleven rounds and 107 points, twenty-seven clear. Nineteen of his twenty-three Grand Prix victories came in the premier class.
After A second major accident, in practice at Silverstone in 1982, damaged both legs and effectively ended his front-running career; he retired in 1984. He moved to Australia in the late 1980s, worked in television, and was diagnosed with cancer in July 2002. He was inducted into the MotoGP Hall of Fame in August 2026.
