“I’m 71 and I’m as fit as a fiddle”
sport
Where are they now? Ralph Hannan – The surfi e-turned-mechanic whose life was shaped by racingRalph often raced what
he wrenched – here, a
Yamaha RD350 in NZRALPH HANNAN’S FIRST
love was surfing, until big
brother Ross sparked an
interest in motorcycles by
taking him to Oran Park
Raceway. Eighteen months
out of his mechanic’s
apprenticeship at a Newtown
service station, Ralph was
over in Europe w ith his mate
Te r r y D e n n e h y.
They were both 22 and
defied convention by heading
for Italy not England and
building a 500cc racer around
a Honda CB450 twin engine.
German-Swiss Othmar
‘Marly’ Drixl made the frame,
Dennehy tuned the engine
and the likely lads sourced
many components in Milan.
Drixl’s distractions – coffee,
fags, pinball and jaw-boning
- delayed work, but in May
1969, Dennehy finished top
10 in an Italian championship
round at San Remo. The
Drixl-Honda went on to place
fifth in the East German 500
GP, seventh in the Finnish
GP, fourth in the Italian GP
at Imola and be the highest-
placed Honda in any of the
1969 world championships.
It could have been even
better. Dennehy was running
second to Giacomo Agostini at
Sachsenring, but had to push
it home, out of fuel. Ralph and
Terry were gutted.
Hannan did the 1970
European season with
Ginger Molloy, when the
New Zealand ace finished
second in the world 500
championship on a Kawasaki
H1R. Ralph came back home
in ’71, built his own Suzuki
500 racer and started winning
C-grade events.
Then Molloy opened a bike
shop in Hamilton and asked
Hannan to run the workshop.
Ralph raced a Yamaha
TD2 tuned by Bert Flood, a
Kawasaki H2 with expansion
chambers and a Yamaha
RD350 with TR2 cylinders and
exhaust pipes.
Once again, brother Ross
Hannan stepped into the
picture. “He came over for a
meeting at Bay Park, saying he
wanted to expand his business
in Newtown and to build
Superbikes,” Ralph said.
“I put him in touch with
Graeme Crosby. You could
see what Croz would be like,
because he was winning in NZ
on pretty standard bikes.”
Ralph Hannan didn’t build
the first Hannan-Kawasaki
Superbike, which debuted
in 1976, but he refined it and
built the others. Number two
was completed in a fortnight
for the Hannan team’s fabled
1977 Bol d’Or 24 Hour assault.
Number three was the hugelysuccessful Z1-R Crosby raced
until he went to compete in
England in 1979.
The team later ran a
Moriwaki-Kawasaki TTF1
machine for Wayne Gardner
in the Swann Series, Gardner
and Andrew Johnson in the
Coca-Coca 800, and John
Pace at Bathurst, as well as
Superbikes for Paul Feeney
and visiting American Dave
Aldana. Ralph had a few rides
on the Aldana bike.
“In 1989 or ’90, I moved to
Cairns and worked in a Suzuki
shop for six or seven months,
while I did diving courses and
such. A friend decided to open
an ATV park and wanted me
to run the place. We called
it Blazing Saddles. Until
recently, I was on 50 acres
outside Cairns, but now I have
an apartment in town with my
partner, Leah Yanos.
I’m 71 and I’m as fit as a
fiddle. I’m helping a mate
build a Suzuki 500 racer.
Favourite riders?
“I didn’t see a lot of him, but
Jarno Saarinen and (Giacomo)
Agostini, too.
“In this part of the world?
Croz is the best I’ve ever seen.
At the ’77 Bol d’Or he was
streets ahead of anyone, on a
bike that didn’t handle. That
was the only time I saw him
ride in Europe.“We went to (the inaugural)
Suzuka Eight-Hour in 1978
to run (Mamoru) Moriwaki’s
bike with Croz and Tony
Hatton. Ross told Croz to just
go out, break the lap record
and tell Moriwaki the bike
is great. In three laps, he
bettered the lap record by
about six seconds. That’s what
he could do. I didn’t see a lot
of Australian guys of the early
1970s like Warren Willing,
because I was in New Zealand.
“There were guys too that I
admired for their tenacity and
never crashing – especially
Ginger Molloy and Trevor
Discombe. Ginger simply
didn’t crash. We had five bikes
in the van and he’d finish in
the top six with all of them. I
liked Geoff Perry too.
“The first time I ever raced
in New Zealand, at Pukekohe,
Ginger, Discombe and Geoff
were battling each other and
lapped me all at once.”
A few years ago, Hannan
had a trans-Tasman phone
conversation with Molloy.
The two-hour call ended with
Ralph in tears – from laughing
so much.
So where did Ross Hannan’s
long-ago invitation to help
him at a practice day take his
surfie younger brother?
“Motorcycling made my
life,” Ralph says. DON COX