The Special One
Okay, stick with me here, this is a long story so let me grab a beer from my fridge as I’m in the shed and it’s bloody hot.
As I write, it was this exact day 25 years ago – Australia Day, January 26, 1993. I was 17 years and eight months old and working as a first year apprentice motorcycle mechanic at Willing Motorcycles (of the brothers Len, Warren and Glen Willing fame). Warren, a multiple Grand Prix champion here, was the Marlboro Roberts 500cc GP Yamaha engineer at the time, Len was my boss and was Australian 500cc champion and a superbike legend and Glen was a production racing and tuning guru. The head mechanic, Dudley Lister, was the ex Mick Doohan mechanic.
In short, I was in heaven. I’d been skipping school and hanging around the shop
