I, like many of you I suppose, don't know who Barry Sheene is. (If you do, be cool, don't blast me in the comments) but I'm blown away that he just beat Joey Dunlop and Soichiro Honda out for induction into Motor Sport Hall of Fame

Two-time world champion Barry Sheene was inducted into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame on 7 June. Sheene topped a 12-strong shortlist following a public vote, joining John McGuinness, Valentino Rossi and the late, great John Surtees among others

‘Fast Freddie’ Spencer raced against Sheene in the early 1980s and added his own memories: “In 1980, I was 18 and had never raced outside the US. I came over for a match race and won, beating Barry – but he was the first person to come up afterwards and say, ‘Good job’. Then, in 1982, I was signing autographs with him and we’d been there about an hour. I began to stir and he said, ‘Where are you going? We stay here until the last person has their signature’. That was the Barry I knew.”

http://www.thegentlemanracer.com/2017/06/berry-sheene-inducted-into-motor-sport.html

So i looked around online to learn a bit about him...

"The miracle of his consummate 1976 500cc world title was that it came a year after he emerged from the wreckage of his 175mph crash at Daytona, where he broke his leg, six ribs, his back, a wrist and his collarbone. When he came to in hospital, the first thing he did was ask the nurse for ‘a fag’. (Brit speak for cigarette) 

Barry was no saint and for every achievement, such as his 137mph record lap at the treacherous old Spa-Francorchamps circuit, there was a TV thrown from a hotel window.

Yet he was the purest of competitors. Freddie Spencer, twice a 500cc world champion, still remembers fondly that it was Barry who hugged him after his first GP win. And Roberts once told me: ‘I could not have had a greater rival when we went to battle.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-4459324/The-story-British-champion-Barry-Sheene.html

By the late Seventies, Sheene was a bona fide star. He hung out with George Harrison and James Hunt

In his later years he formed a high-jinks gang named “The Squadron” with a bunch of friends including Steve Parrish. Once they underwent a clandestine rescue mission to reclaim £250-worth of goods owed to Sheene’s housekeeper by a former boyfriend. They broke into the house and then made their getaway in a Rolls-Royce.

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/ten-incredible-facts-you-didnt-know-about-barry-sheene

"Barry worked much more than just twisting the throttle," adds Parrish. "He spoke three or four languages because he knew that if he could communicate with all his mechanics, he could get better equipment from those supplying his bikes.

"There was this huge respect for him in the paddock, not just for his sense of humour but also his technical ability. He would even help rivals sort their bikes out."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/motogp/23844625

And it seems there will be, or was, a movie about him. IMDB says it's in development. So... since it's 18 months since they announced the movie was happening, I'm guessing it isn't going to. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5345046/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1



and that's what's cool about this hobby, there are an unlimited number of real true stories out there, more to learn every day