ROBBED!

Gary Nixon’s racing years divided neatly into two chapters. The Triumph years in the 1960s saw him win the Daytona 200 and two successive Grand National Championships on a mixture of dirt and tarmac tracks as well as surviving a major crash that could have ended his life, let alone his career.

The 1970s saw him master the fearsome 750cc two-strokes of the era to the extent that he was the most successful road-racer in American racing in 1973. He survived another life-threatening crash in 1975 and even appeared to have become World Formula 750 Champion in 1976 before being, in the eyes of most, robbed of that accolade by a decision of the Federation Internationale Motocycliste that seemed to be wholly politically motivated.This is the story...

At the end of the racing season in 1971 there was a sea -change for American road racing: the British and American 750cc four-strokes that had dominated the class were obviously under pressure from the emerging two-stroke opposition from Japan.

Two-time Grand National Champion, Gary Nixon, had ridden for Triumph throughout his career, winning races on both the 500cc twins (such as Daytona in 1967) and the 750cc triples, but he saw the writing on the wall: as long ago as 1967 he had won the 100-Mile Daytona Lightweight Race for Yamaha and found that his TD1C 250cc twin two-stroke was faster than the Triumph 500 four-stroke twin with which he won the main Daytona 200 race on the following day. The Triumph had qualified around the banked oval at around 138mph while the Yamaha went through the speed traps at 145mph plus!

A year later at Daytona, Cal Rayborn won the race for Harley-Davidson but Yvon Duhamel and Art