This
Pom loves remembering the motorbikes of the forgotten era.
Keith Higgs was only 6-years-old at the time, but he still remembers sitting on his parent’s driveway in Essex, staring at his father’s brand new 1964 BSA Bantam, with its fishtail exhaust pipe and chrome plated petrol tank.
“I thought it was the dog’s bollocks,” he says. “Dad took me for a ride on it and I was in love.”
It was a defining moment for Higgs, now 51. Since that day he has been hooked on motorbikes, and enjoyed a great deal of success on the track, racing in the historic class known as Forgotten Era Racing – 1973 to 1982.
“It was an era dominated by Japanese bikes which is probably why it was forgotten,” Higgs says.
In fact Higgs’ first bike was a Japanese bike, a Yamaha FS1E, or Fizzy, as it was popularly known. He bought it when he was 16, on the day he got his licence.
Being just 50cc, it was no road rocket, but Higgs says it was quite a cool bike.
“I thought it was a fabulous little machine and being purple the girls all loved it,” he says. “I’d take them for a ride out to the country and find a nice secluded spot, if you know what I mean.”
Once he turned 17, he was legally able to buy a ‘proper’ motorbike, so he opted for Yamaha AS3 125, a bike that had its roots on the racetrack. “It would do 80 miles and hour (130kph) and do it regularly,” Higgs says. “It would burn off all the 250s from the traffic lights, especially the Hondas.”
He says his parents didn’t have a problem with him owning such a speedy little machine and the risks involved with motorbikes.
“Mum knew I loved bikes and her attitude was, if I died on one, at least I’d die doing something I loved,” he says.
His next bike was an early 70s Suzuki GT 380, a perfect long distance tourer for travelling north to university in Hull.
“I came off that bike countless times, it had the most dreadful tyres on it,” Higgs recalls. “It taught me how important the correct tyres really are.”
In 1978, he swapped the Suzuki for a very reliable Honda CB500. He toured around Europe on it, racking up thousands of kilometres.
It was around this time, Higgs started getting interested in racing. He turned up one weekend to watch a Trans Atlantic Trophy race at Brands Hatch. His first impression was the carpark full of motorbikes “I felt like I belonged,” he says.
After graduating from university in 1980 and getting a job in IT, Higgs purchased what he says was a very pretty Honda KZ750. On his holidays he’d ride it to France to watch the endurance events such as the Le Mans 24 hours, and the Bol D’Or.
En route to the latter, he fell off his bike and it caught fire, leaving him with nothing but the clothes he was standing in. He hitched the rest of the way to the circuit and got a lift back to England with one of the race teams.
With the Honda completely destroyed, Higgs went out and paid 1000 pounds for what is still the favourite bike he’s ever owned - a 1978 Rickman Honda CR 750.
“It was basically a racing chassis and a tuned engine, with lights and indicators to make it legal for the road,” he says. “It was very fast and very loud. I saw over 140 mph on the clock on the A34 heading down to Southampton.”
It was the excessive speeds on public roads that prompted Higgs to get into racing himself. “I realised I was really pushing my luck.”
So he enrolled at a Yamaha race school, run by Chas Mortimer, a famous GP and TT rider. The moment Higgs hit the Goodwood circuit and broke the school’s lap record, Mortimer could see he had a natural flair and suggested he take up the sport.
Higgs purchased a Yamaha LC350 to race in a production series. He drew a front row grid position in his first outing. When the flag fell, he was left behind.
“I just couldn’t believe how fast everybody was going,” he says. “It was an eye opener. I came about 33rd out of a field of 40. It took me a year before I won my first race. It was at Brands Hatch on a very wet day.”
In the mid 1980s, Higgs got married, had children and gave racing away. “My wife never really liked it and never understood it,” he says. He split with his wife in 1992. But it would be three more years until he returned to racing, taking the old Rickman Honda onto the track. He was rusty and the bike was slow. “We were completely outclassed by 1200cc monsters.”
Not one to like losing, he went out and paid 2,300 pounds for a full on race bike – a 1978 P&M Kawasaki, 1260cc. With a top speed of around 270km/hr it’s not for the faint hearted.
“I did I take it down the shops on a few occasions to run it in, but I never got caught,” he says. “It’s got no number plates and it would outrun a cop car easily, so I wasn’t too worried.”
In 2000 Higgs won the Forgotten Era Racing Clubs F1 championships in the UK. He was runner up for the following four years.
The turning point in Higgs’ life came in 2005, when he travelled to Australia to race in the International Challenge on Philip Island. It was his first trip downunder and he loved it. Later that year, he got a job offer to work in Sydney and snapped it up.
The first thing he did when he put his luggage down was join the Australian PCRA (Post Classic Racing Association), winning their 2006 Forgotten Era Championship on a borrowed bike - an ex Graeme Crosby Moriwaki Kawasaki.
The following year, his P&M arrived by container from the UK and he raced it to victory. He took out the championship again in 07, 08 and 09.
Higgs says the so-called forgotten era is not so forgotten anymore, with around 40 bikes on the grid at major race meetings.
To keep costs down he works on his race bike himself, pulling down the engine and rebuilding it. “I taught myself about motors by pulling my dad’s lawnmower apart when I was a kid,” he says.
And his dream bike? “If I won Lotto I’d buy a 1970s TZ750 Yamaha. “It’s the holy grail of the forgotten era. You’ll pay upwards of $60,000 for one and they require a huge amount of maintenance, but hell they’re fast,” he says.