Vale Greg Pretty*
Greg Pretty, the superstar of the 1979 national season, has died in a road accident in the Adelaide Hills.
Pretty, 54, an airline pilot from Enfield (Adelaide), was riding his Honda with a group of friends on Saturday, January 16. Another rider, travelling in the opposite direction, strayed onto Pretty’s side of the road and collided with him head on. Both riders died at the scene.
Thirty years ago, Greg Pretty was the hottest thing in Australian road-racing. The sight of him sliding both wheels of his Yamaha-Pitmans TZ750F in the speedbowl section of Adelaide International Raceway was one of the classic images of the era.
This from a guy who honed his riding skills in the Hills on a Honda 750, riding most Sundays in the Phoenix Motorcycle Club’s run from Eagle On The Hill to Lobethal.
He won the 250 Production race at Bathurst in 1976 and from 1977 began racking up wins in long-distance Production races, In 1978 Pretty won the South Australian round of the national championship on his personal Yamaha TZ750.
During the 1979 season, this chirpy 24-years-old construction worker with the Zapata moustache won the Australian Unlimited Road-Racing Championship, the Swann Insurance International Series (beating among others world 500 championship number four Dutchman Wil Hartog), the non-championship Indonesian GP and the Sugo Big Road Race in Japan. He also won the Adelaide Three-Hour and Perth Four-Hour Production races, and finished second in the Castrol Six-Hour, on a Yamaha XS1100.
Ten or 20 years later, such results would have attracted great interest overseas Instead, Pretty went to England as a private rider in 1980 and struggled. Greg competed in the 1980 Isle of Man TT. He only had the Yamaha 750, so he was only eligible for one race, the Classic 1300cc TT.
He said later: “You had to ride there with the right attitude, otherwise you’d get hurt. I had very little official practice to jet and gear the bike. Eighty riders started in the race and 32 finished. Two were killed and I finished 25th after riding the last half lap at 15 mph because the steering damper had broken. I was happy with that.”
Greg came home in 1981 and restarted his great partnership with Yamaha Pitmans’ team manager Mal Pitman. In two months Pretty won the Coca-Cola 800 and the Arai 500 on chain driven Yamaha XS11 Pitman built, and the and the Bathurst Unlimited Race on his favourite TZ750F. He reckoned Pitman has a special way of motivating him, with quotes such as: “I’ve never seen such an old chook on a motorbike”.
Honda Australia hired Pretty to race Superbikes in 1982, but the combination never really gelled. Greg put his efforts into chasing his commercial pilot’s licence from that point – save for a brief comeback in 1985. He later took up club racing in a Porsche 911 and maintained a life-long passion for building and flying model aircraft.
Greg maintained contact with many of his racing mates over the years and even toyed with the idea of a comeback ride in last November’s Six-Hour race at Oran Park.
He’ll be sadly missed, not just as a true local legend but a terrific guy.
* Rhymes with “Betty”
Images: Castrol6hour.com.au
More details: The Advertiser, Adelaide
Tags: 1970s, 1980s, Classic Racing Motorcycles, Riders, Superbikes
I first met GP at Surfers Paradise just after he returned from overseas. He was there spectating as he was injured, and of course took great delight in showing me his scabbed up bottom at the After Party. He was just that sort of guy. Full of fun, and no harm. It was billed as the greatest race ever when GP and Jim Budd met on the track at Bathurst. The coming together of 2 equals each determined to prove who was the Champion. Interestingly enough, they took each other out going up Mount Straight, and had to sit in the brambles together watching someone else win their race. They removed their helmets, formally introduced themselves and laughed all the way back to the pits. Their friendship was formed that day, and stayed connected until the very end. Now Greg has joined Jim in the Great Race in the sky. You will be very missed Greg Pretty. Gone but never forgotten.
Greg was a true friend……..I will miss him always.
I’m struggling to think when Greg fell off when he was racing in Oz in a major event. He was always very fast and ultra reliable. Definitely one of the best and most versatile riders Australia has produced in the last 40 years. God speed.
Vale, the great guy. What a fabulous rider he was. I still remember the impromptu “race” that he, Neil Chivas and Graeme Crosby had late on Saturday afternoon in 1979. Team managers and pit crew were going berserk as the three of them carved it up through the traffic in a race that could have had disastrous ramifications for all of them should something have gone wrong. When they finally stopped and pulled in to the pits, the late Alan Hales started tearing strips off his co-rider. Chivas simply said, “Oh, we were only having fun.” Hales’s reply is unprintable.
The current AMCN has a tribute to Greg with great tributes from Wayne Gardner, Croz, Wally Campbell, Rob Phillis, Stu Avant and Mal Pitman.
The authors of the tributes to Greg in AMCN come as no surprise, absolutely a rock solid Aussie Rider, no mucking around. Greg just seemed to be able to ride fast anywhere on anything and damn it he was so diminutive. Again no surprise as to the condolences originating from Aviation circles too, tremendous.
Greg’s loss is sadly another of my heroes taken too early, this sadness began with Bryan Hindle, I know it is crazy but I think of Bryan every other day even now, and I never actually met him. We have lost so many great Aussie Road Racers and the terrible irony is that a great deal of the fatalities occurred off the track. We all need to be bl##dy careful and hold our collective memories of too many fallen riders for as long as possible.
NB: Hi Phil, It appears my memory is deteriorating, I thought it was Alan Hales doing that fantastic impromtu lap with Greg and Croz. I still vividly remember Croz throwing the CBX around like a trail bike, fantastic stuff…..
I remember another GP race that had the crowd amazed. The 3 hour at Surfers in 1979, dicing with Roger Hayes on another XS1100. They would pass each other at the end of the straight each lap before the dunlop bridge and as they went past they would pat each other on the back. Maybe why he dnf.