RACING LEGEND KEL CARRUTHERS
Dominance of the local scene, a world championship, back-to-back Isle of Man TT victories and then success in the USA… Kel Carruthers did it all in a 19-year racing career, and then put his knowledge behind the likes of Kenny Roberts and Eddie Lawson.
Where do you begin to tell the Kel Carruthers story? If you want high drama, nothing beats his winning 1969 Yugoslav Grand Prix ride on the treacherous Opatija street circuit to clinch the 1969 world 250 championship on a four-cylinder Benelli. For Carruthers’ personal riding highlights, look to his back-to-back Isle of Man TT victories, the first as a late addition to the Benelli team and the second on a Yamaha TD2.
The great might have been? Having his works ride evaporate but very nearly winning a second world championship on a privately entered machine in 1970. Carruthers won more classics than in his championship year but five non-finishes, most machine related, cruelled his title chances.
After five seasons in Europe, the Carruthers family went to the USA in 1971 for what was meant to be one year. He enjoyed success as a rider and as Yamaha America team manager, before returning to Europe and first-up world 500 championship success in 1978 with protégé Kenny Roberts. He was winning crew chief for another five championships, two more with Roberts and three with Eddie Lawson.
In fact Kel Carruthers’ career in road racing spanned five decades, from emerging teenage racer in the late 1950s and dominant figure in the Australian scene in the first half of the 1960s, to successful Continental Circus private entrant, factory rider for Aermacchi, Benelli and Yamaha, technical roles with Yamaha and Cagiva, a stint race-preparing water craft and, finally, tending Supersport machines in the US championships.
His development journey ranged from testing home-built BSAs at the Mt Druitt circuit to riding the Yamaha TZ750 prototype in Japan, building Roberts’ famous 1975 Indy Mile winning TZ750 dirt tracker and unique access for a Westerner inside Yamaha’s race department.
Did we miss anything? It’s hard not to. Carruthers won 17 GP races at Mount Panorama and seven world championship races on some of the toughest circuits – the Isle of Man (twice), Dundrod (twice), Brno, Opatija, and the Nürbugring in rain and fog. He was the last rider to win the world 250 championship on a our-stroke machine, runner up in two championships in 1970 and scored race victories in F750 events in the USA on 350 machines.
But get this. In 19 years of racing, from scrambles in outer suburban Sydney to the tri-oval at Daytona, he did not break a bone. When Carruthers was in Sydney
