Barry Sheene - Donington Park 2000
One of the great privileges of being a photographer is that you can end up being paid to meet your heroes. This was one such occasion. For me, as a long-time biker, Barry Sheene was a real hero: World Champion in 1976 and 77, survived two horrific high-speed crashes, had a hole drilled in his helmet chin piece so he could have a last fag on the start line and, of course, that 1979 British Grand Prix race with Kenny Roberts.
I photographed him racing a Fred Walmsley Manx Norton in a classic race at Donington Park in July 2000. He was one of those people who put everyone at ease. While I was photographing him he started chatting to a pretty German woman in the next pit garage. At one point he said something to her in German and she burst out laughing. I said ‘I didn’t know you could speak German’ and his reply was ‘Mate, I can get my face slapped in a dozen different languages’.
I sent him some prints of him and his son Freddy from that day and a couple of weeks later I was on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, in the west coast of Scotland, when my mobile rang. I answered it and a voice on the other end said 'Hello Steve, it’s Barry Sheene here in Australia, thanks for the pictures'. Standing on a hillside in a remote part of Scotland, talking to one of my heroes on the other side of the world was one of the more surreal moments of my life. He died less than three years later of cancer, which seemed so terrible after all the near-death experiences he had managed to survive.