With Tommy Robb dead, the World Championship mourns a champion without a crown

The former Northern Irish rider Tommy Robb died yesterday, one of the best known and strongest international riders, on the track for over fifteen years, from 1957 to 1973, 1962 vice world champion in the 350 class riding the official 4-stroke 4-cylinder Honda. Robb, small in stature but gritty and at ease on all types of bikes and displacements, has competed on every track with Nsu, AJS, Ducati, Bridgestone, Suzuki, Bultaco, Maico, Aermacchi, Seeley, Yamaha, Honda in the 50s, 125s, 250, 350, 500, obtaining the best results in the early 60s, riding official Hondas.

Fierce competition

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At the time, the House of the Golden Wing had a lot of drivers in all displacements except the 500, so it was not easy for Robb to make his way with teammates such as Mike Hailwood, Tom Phillis, Jim Redman, Luigi Taveri, Kunimitsu Takahashi , Bob Brown, Bob Mc Intyre. Indeed, Robb, due to his characteristics as a runner-technician, was used by the technicians of the House of the Rising Sun as a “test driver” and also as a useful pawn in internal team games. The Northern Irish rider lent himself to these roles, both because he was well paid for this and also because Honda provided him with racing cars and technical preciousness unthinkable for a private individual, also allowing him valuable results, both in the race and in the championship. “At Honda there are already riders with the ‘King’ crown and I am honored to share glory and even money with them”. A young realist Tommy Robb, expression of the Continental Circus racer, always ready to take the opportunity to get on the official bike but without making any drama when the welcome came back “private” maybe scoring some … revenge.

Wet specialist

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Especially in particularly agitated races, perhaps under water, Robb was always ready for the assault, determined to seize the right moment, climbing on the podium or opening the way to victory for his team leader. There was no shortage of tensions like in Assen 1962 when first in the 250, then in the 350 it was two Italians, Tarquinio Provini and Silvio Grassetti who ended up in the crosshairs of the Northern Irish Honda rider. Before the ’62 Dutch GP, Robb had won a third place on the Honda 125 in France and a second place in the Tourist Trophy (after Assen he will still be second in East Germany and Ulster and then third in Monza, losing the title for a short time. of the eighth of a liter) while in the 250 he had collected only “zeros”, then winning in the deluge at Ulster and in the 350, after disastrous beginnings, closing with three podiums (second place in Monza was splendid) and the triumph in the last round in Finland, vice world champion of the treemmezzo.

Door

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So in Assen the championship was open in the “central” categories: the 250 with Provini (Morini mono) and Grassetti (Benelli “4”) bogeymen of the Japanese and the 350, again with Grassetti, here on the official twin-cylinder Bianchi. The qualifying saw the Italian drivers and manufacturers as favorites. In the quarter-liter, in the chaos of the braking of the first corner, Provini is hit by Robb who ends up on the ground and abandons while the ace from Piacenza starts again battered, protagonist of a chase with a gap of 50 seconds from the fugitive Redman. Impossible feat? Not for Tarquinio who, lap after lap, overtook 44 riders, eventually hooking up the two Honda treads Redman and McIntyre. The “flying Scotsman” follows the team’s orders, braking the Italian in the last braking position allowing his teammate from Rhodes to be the first to pass under the checkered flag, taking off in the standings. The 250 thousand explode in the stands with Provini held good by the Morini mechanics, all with the toad in the goiter. Jim and Bob spread their arms as if to say: “It’s the races!”.

Mangifica Honda

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Ditto, more or less, in the 350 where Honda closes its magnificent day with three wins in three displacements: the 125 with Taveri, the 250 with Redman, the 350 – for the first time – always with the long Rhodesian. Under a terrible downpour, Hailwood (MV Agusta), Grassetti (Bianchi) and the Honda duo MC Intyre and Robb immediately take the lead, followed by Brambilla, Minter, Read, Shepherd, Duff, Havel and Redman. Hailwood and Grassetti are rammed by Robb, who has reached the corner too fast. Mike manages to stay on the track while the Italian from Bianchi goes on the mud but does not fall starting a chase at the… Tryouts. When Silvio was about to complete the feat, with the victory close at hand, the twin-cylinder took one lap at the end, overtaken by Hailwood, second and Redman first. The Irishman apologizes for… the mistake as Jim only sees his flag rising on the highest flagpole and hears only the notes of his hymn flying in the brightened sky.

Gentleman

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Off the track Tommy Robb was a “golden boy”, always ready to lend a hand to everyone, always with the word “sorry”, always with his “hello” addressed to the Italian drivers and mechanics, of whom – he repeated – he had great respect, especially after his experiences with Ducati and Aermacchi and always waiting to be called to MV Agusta, a marriage that will never take place. Tommy Robb was born in Belfast on October 14, 1934 and in his first twenty years he had pulled the cart, with menial jobs, to make ends meet. Then the first motorbike laps, the first races on dirt roads, then the city circuits, many falls, many days in the hospital, a great desire to start over driven by increasingly sensational results. In 1957 he made his big debut in the world championship, taking a splendid podium at the Ulster GP with an NSU 250 and starting a long career up to 1973 that was not without satisfactions even though Tommy joined the small club of highly valued riders but “champions without a crown” . In total, in the world championship Robb is, as already written, runner-up in the 350 world behind Jim Redman, he wins three Grand Prix, winning 27 podiums in all categories. In addition, he also boasts five victories at the North West 200 and, again in the Northern Irish races, he recorded his last presence at the 1979 Tourist Trophy, more than 20 years after his debut.

The Dream MV

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Again in 2010 he took part among the big names in historical re-enactments such as the one on the Dutch circuit of Assen. For years he took the Magone with him for not having been hired by MV. Count Agusta promised him entry to Cascina Costa since 1963 when Mike Hailwood was on the Italian 4 cylinders for the world championship and Silvio Grassetti and Alan Shepherd for the races and extra world champions. But Tommy was not demoralized and at the beginning of a new season he was always in shape, with a new bike from a different brand, ready to chase the podium, ready to achieve the dream of becoming world champion.