THIS YEAR MARKS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF one of this writer’s most satisfying International race victories. It was the Lightweight Battle of the Twins race, run on the steep bankings of the Daytona Speedway, in Cycle Week 1984, and was achieved on a quixotic creation whose improbable success was made more satisfying by being achieved on such a tight budget – when it was still possible to go World Championship racing all over Europe out of the back of a Transit van. Or actually, in the case of Maurice Ogier’s 600TT2 Laverda, out of the back of a three-cylinder, two-stoke Wartburg station wagon made in former East Germany that was equally individual, if considerably less high-tech than the bike it carried back and forth across the English Channel from Ogier’s base in Guernsey.
Over four decades, I have been lucky enough to race more than 150 different bikes, but few – exotic as some were – aroused as much interest as ‘That Bloody Laverda’, as it rapidly became known among the owners and riders of tricked-out, high-tech, molto expensivo 600TT2 Ducatis and the like who had to contend with it. So, here to mark the 40th anniversary of its season in the sun is the inside story of Maurice Ogier’s TBL.
Ogier is a gifted car mechanic of that hardy breed of native Channel Islanders bred on self-sufficiency, who earns his living maintaining the high-end wheels of the tax fugitives on Guernsey. In his spare time, besides accumulating an impressive collection of 125cc Grand Prix bikes, Mo was for many years a successful car racer, specialising in hill climbs, sand races, circuit single-seaters, and sports cars, too. An inveterate biker since his late teens, he later began racing on two wheels as well, competing in Classic bike events all over Europe on bikes ranging from a TZ700 Yamaha to a 125cc MV Agusta. This is a man whose versatility is matched by his ingenuity.
