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Vale Greg Pretty*

Submitted by on January 18, 201010 Comments

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. First reports suggested that another rider had veered onto the wrong side of the road and the riders had hit head on, killing them both. However “A few weeks ago the coroner’s inquest released its findings. It found that Greg Pretty, not Mostyn Walker, had been on the wrong side of the road. Pretty had caused the fatal crash; he had caused Walker’s death, not the other way around.”

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”

Don Cox

Images: Castrol6hour.com.au

More details: The Advertiser, Adelaide

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  • Laynie – the Marketing Muscle

    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.

  • Vaughan Coburn

    Greg was a true friend……..I will miss him always.

  • Speed54

    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.

  • http://www.halfofmylife.com Phil Hall

    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.

  • Speed54

    The current AMCN has a tribute to Greg with great tributes from Wayne Gardner, Croz, Wally Campbell, Rob Phillis, Stu Avant and Mal Pitman.

  • http://www.deejay51.com deejay51

    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…..

  • Dave T

    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.

  • Rory McDonald

    I watched GP pass us in the 350 Monaro on the outside on the way to the pub on Sat night after sat practise for the 6 Hour..he spun it backwards into the bushes…REAL deep…got out..said to Dennis Neil and me..”Ahhh..she’ll be right..we’ll get it later…let’s go to the pub”..Hero..mate…Short on Stature..Big on Heart..Missed…especially that sneaky grin..Rest easy GP…
    R

  • David Ridgway

    Greg Pretty died in the head-on crash with another motorcyclist near Macclesfield. The other rider, 50 year-old Mostoyn Walker, also died at the scene. Pretty was riding with a group of friends. Walker was on his own.

    The next day, perhaps relying on the testimony given by Pretty’s friends to police, the media reported that the fatal crash had been the other rider’s fault. Police told journalists the other rider had crossed to the wrong side of the road when he hit Pretty coming in the opposite direction. Senior Sergeant Brenton Rowney of the Major Crash Investigation Unit said Walker had made a “very grave error” that had cost two lives.

    “The Honda (Pretty’s bike) was heading south on the correct side of the road,” Sergeant Rowney told reporters. “The Kawasaki veered on to the incorrect side of the road for whatever reason and killed both of them,” he said.

    Imagine how Mr Walker’s close and immediate family, and his friends and others who knew him, felt when they read that.

    And the police sergeant went on. “Clearly this accident today or this collision today is as a result of someone driving outside their skill level. If people to continue to do that, no matter what the police do or what members of the public do the road toll will continue to climb,” he said.

    Naturally, Australia’s large and active motorcycling community was shocked and outraged that the well-liked and respected racer should meet his death because of someone else’s stupidity and recklessness.

    On internet forums, the other rider was castigated.

    A few weeks ago the coroner’s inquest released its findings. It found that Greg Pretty, not Mostyn Walker, had been on the wrong side of the road. Pretty had caused the fatal crash; he had caused Walker’s death, not the other way around.

    “The Advertiser and Sunday Mail referred in positive terms to Mr Pretty’s undoubted abilities as a rider but said nothing of the kind in relation to the other deceased motorcyclist. The quoted remarks of the police spokesman disparaged the other motorcyclist,” said the official inquest.

    “It will be seen that the comments attributed to the spokesman must have been offered to the media on the day of the collision and before any proper investigation,” the Coroner said.

    “The uncorrected account of the accident as described by the police spokesman was if anything the antithesis of the manner in which the accident occurred. This Inquest would have been largely unnecessary had police refrained from making any public statement about this accident before the facts were established.

    “The assertions attributed to the police spokesman have not been publicly corrected since they appeared in the media in January 2010,” he lamented.

    I would like SA police to take heed of the Coroner’s warning, and not make presumptions before the facts are known. I counsel reporters not to report speculation as fact, particularly when blaming the wrong rider can have such awful consequences to an innocent man’s memory. And I wish to pass on my sincere condolences to the families and friends of both Greg Pretty and Mostyn Walker.

    David Ridgway
    Shadow minister for police
    Adelaide

  • JJ cox

    alrite don,have to agree cb750 great bike got mine in 81, have 99,850km.on her now still going like a dream.