The Pan Pacific Series 1972 Glory for Grant – the ‘certifiable’ champion

The success of the ‘Down Under’ tour by Giacomo Agostini in 1971, where he won all but one start, rekindled interest in establishing an Australian, or even Australasian race meeting series to occupy the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere.

There had been other off-season ‘tours’ before, as far back as 1936 when TT star Stanley Woods arrived with a brace of works Velocettes, followed the next year by the German DKW factory, which sent their top rider Ewald Kluge out for three meetings – a tour that became mired in controversy when it was revealed the team manager had strong connections to the Nazi Party. Then in 1948, future World Champion Fergus Anderson arrived with two works Moto Guzzis (a 250 single and a wide-angle 500cc v-twin) plus one of the new and then-unseen AJS 7R 350cc production racers. The concept was starting to catch on.

Six years later, a genuine superstar arrived – none other than Geoff