What got you into bikes?

My dad owned Peter Rice Honda at Capalaba and I started racing motocross and dirt-track on a RM80 and then a CR80, which I finished fourth on in the Australian championships at Rocky in ’85. I quit racing for a while, then I came back racing those Honda trikes and finished second in the Nationals. It was fun and I guess it gave me a different skill set.

Your dad had quite a different training regime for you and your brother.

Throughout my racing career, no one taught me anything, but we had a place that was built on that hard, red clay and whenever it rained Dad would send me and my brother out to the clay on our little bikes. We spent most of the time crashing; it was almost impossible to stay on if you pushed it, but it was good training all the same.

Your dad also had a unique pathway for you into the workforce…

When I left school after Year 10, Dad didn’t want me to work in his shop. He reckoned I had to get a real job – working at a place scraping chicken guts into the bins to be turned into chicken feed. It was hard yakka, incredibly hot in summer, but after a year Dad that said I’d done my time and I started working as an apprentice mechanic in his shop.

You almost fell into road racing – how?

I had no real interest in road racing, I didn’t follow it or know too much about it. But a bloke I knew who owned a KR250 proddy kept pestering me to give it a go, so eventually I had my first road race on an RZ250, but I was smoked by all the other guys on their new TZR250s.

I borrowed some money from Mum and bought one, but I felt guilty about it so I wanted to sell it and give her the money back. I won my first race on it at the Swann Series round at Lakeside, beating the gun guy, David Craig. He had to win the second race to clinch the 250 proddy series and asked me to let him win, which I did. He got all the headlines and I got nothing, so that was the last time I did that!

Anyway Charles Young from RK Chains bought the bike from me, let me keep it and I gave the money to Mum, so it was all sweet.

Tell us about the two-hour proddy race at Oran Park.

That was the support race for the ’89 WSBK round.

I got my hands on the new RGV250, the one in Pepsi colours, and I went under Mick Doohan’s proddy lap record by three seconds.

I was leading the race when I crashed coming onto the straight. I broke the left footpeg, got going in dead last and eventually caught everyone up, including Troy Corser, who was leading. I ended up passing him to take the win. I don’t know, I just clicked with road racing…

That led to the step up to the 250GP class.

Jon McGillivray was Mick Doohan’s manager and he got some Peter Jackson money to cover our expenses for 1990. Dad mortgaged the house and we bought a new TZ250A from Michael Dowson’s dad’s shop in WA, paying top dollar.

I wasn’t in control of the sponsorship money and we ran out by mid-season, so I had to stump up the rest.

The bike was slow, but I loved racing in the 250GP class, dicing with Steve Whitehouse and Dave
Horton. It was fantastic. There was a lot of trust between us. You knew you wouldn’t get carved up.

What happened after that?

Troy Corser got the Peter Jackson money in 1991. We kept going with our TZ250A. Again, it was slow, but after Bruce Woodley from Powerflow gave it the once over it was a lot better.

After that, Frank Hodder from Bridgestone arranged an Aprilia for me, but the tyres weren’t great. We finally got some trick Bridgestones for Phillip Island and dropped our times by three seconds – it was unbelievable the difference they made.

The next year Phil Tainton put me on the Melbourne Suzuki Superbike, but we couldn’t get it to handle. I raced a Moorooka Yamaha Thundercat 600, but that wasn’t really a racebike.

And that was it, I slipped
out of racing.

What are you up to these days?

I now work at Victory & Indian Motorcycles in Brisbane. I have a Honda CRF450 that I’ve tricked up, enjoy working out at the gym, and doing the Troy Bayliss Classic.

By Darryl Flack