Three-times 1970s Australian GP winner Robert Hinton was 72 in August and is still active in racing as a race-bike owner in Forgotten Era events. His Yamaha TZ350F has won three Australian Historic Period 5 championships with three different riders.
Hinton last raced, on that bike, in the 2007 Australian Historic Championship at Eastern Creek. Today he lives in Forster, New South Wales, with partner Lyn, having previously been on the Gold Coast and Taree since moving out of Sydney.
Robert is the surviving son of multiple Bathurst winner Harry Hinton. Eldest brother Harry Jnr died of pneumonia a week after crashing at the 1959 Imola Gold Cup meeting and Eric Hinton, ten years Robert’s senior, died last December after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease and the effects of a stroke.
Vienie Hinton did not want her youngest son to race after losing Harry Jnr, so 14-years-old Robert was encouraged to continue piano lessons and tennis. As a junior he competed with future three-times Wimbledon champion John Newcombe.
“Mum gave up when I went away to mechanic for Eric in Europe in 1965,” Hinton said. “I rode as a sidecar passenger over there with (Germany’s) Georg Auerbacher and started solo racing when I came back home in 1968. Before going away I had only been on a sidecar with Orrie Salter around Phillip Island and I can tell it was better with Georg.
“We won the French hillclimb championship on Mont Ventoux, which is climb they use in the Tour de France. That was worth about ₤400 in prize money.”
The name Hinton was synonymous with Bathurst. Robert won three Australian GPs there, including the 350/250 double in 1976 on a Yamaha that Eric Hinton built up from a wreck. The engine’s top end and exhausts were changed during the lunch break.
Robert won the 250 GP at Bathurst in 1975 but later in the meeting had the biggest crash of his career on his Yamaha TZ750 when the circlip holding the damper in the fork tube broke on Conrod Straight and the steering turned hard right.
“Bathurst 1976 was my best meeting. As well as the 350/250 GPs, we finally made the TZ750 handle. I was second to Ike Takai’s works bike in the Saturday Unlimited race and running third to Takai and Warren Willing in the Unlimited GP, until I arrived at XL Bend with a flat front tyre. On those bikes you couldn’t tell you had a flat until you tipped into the corner. We had changed the front tyre at the last minute because (Team Kawasaki boss) Neville Doyle didn’t like the look of my tyre and gave me a replacement. The tube might have been pinched when they changed it.”
“For 1976 we used Kawasaki Z1 or H2 fork yokes with 36mm forks; that probably gave it 5mm more offset. In 1975, you’d get to the drive-in gates on Conrod and it would go into a tank-slapper that you would only sort out at the first hump. In 1976 I could go down the straight with two fingers on the handlebars.
“Bathurst…I just liked the place and I could get through the mountain pretty well. Gregg Hansford was quick across there, but from Skyline to Forrest’s Elbow I couldn’t believe how fast Ron Toombs was. I was good, but he just left me.
“The problem at Bathurst was that many people would tighten up and blow the push start. You only had one go at Bathurst a year. The 350 race was eight laps and highly competitive, so if you blew the start you were gone. That happened to me in the 1975 350 GP and the Sayle boys (Jeff and Murray) got away. I almost caught them at the end, but eight laps not enough and you had to pass guys like Kenny Blake and Gary Coleman, who were not slow.”
An ankle injury sustained at Hume Weir ended Hinton’s 1970s career. “It had rained overnight and that left mud on the track. The mud dried and I lost the 350 on it. I was working for Matthew Haritos and the company offered me a $5000 raise if I stopped racing.”
Hinton helped out Jeff Sayle and Vaughan Coburn with the Donny Pask Yamaha 750 in 1977-78, before Stu Avant, Bobby Gregor and the late John Wood raced the rebuilt Hinton 750. By this stage, nephews Peter and Tony Hinton were racing and hence helped by their uncle.
Peter Hinton, Glen Kelleher and Glenn Hindle have won Australian Historic titles on Robert’s 350 Yamaha.
By Don Cox
