Tom Herron......

Para nosotros la creación de este blog y el compartirlo con tantas personas alrededor del mundo no has colmado de satisfacción y ganas de seguir buscando, recopilando y compartiendo material sobre el motociclismo de velocidad y los pilotos protagonistas de la época de oro en Venezuela.

Este compartir nos trajo hasta nuestro blog a un nuevo colaborador Stephen McKeown quien tiene una página dedicada al extraordinario piloto de motovelocidad Tom Herron y decidió colaborar con nosotros escribiendo la nota que publicamos a continuación:

¨Tom Herron was from County Down, Northern Ireland. He was an excellent rider on the pure road circuits but was equally proficient on short circuits and between 1974 and 1978 he was one of the world's leading Grand Prix privateers.

Tom won his first major race in 1970 when he won the 350cc class at the North West 200 and after winning the 1973 Irish 350cc championship, he moved up to the Grand Prix world championships. In 1976 Tom finished fourth in both the 250cc and 350cc World Championships and also had a double at the Isle of Man TT races, with wins in the Lightweight 250 TT and the Blue Riband Senior TT and the following year, he finished runner-up in the 350cc world championship to Yamaha factory rider Takazumi Katayama.In 1978, Tom again was a force to be reckoned with and he again finished high in the 250cc and 350cc World Championships with fifth and sixth place finishes respectively.

He also had a double at the North-West 200, another Senior TT win and a treble at the Ulster Grand Prix.Tom's results were rewarded in 1979 when he signed for the Texaco Heron Suzuki team as team-mate to Barry Sheene and Steve Parrish. His first race for the team was excellent with a third in the 500cc Venezuelan GP and consistent early season performances at Donington Park and Cadwell Park were proof that Suzuki had pulled off a real coup by securing Tom's signature.Back on the Grand Prix scene, and strong finishes in Austria (fourth) and Italy (third) put Tom in third place in the championship as the series headed for Spain where a practice crash left him with a badly broken right thumb and third degree burns to his arms and elbows and as such, unable to race. Despite this, he was still lying fourth in the championship when he arrived back in his native Northern Ireland for the North West 200.The 1979 North West 200 will always be remembered as "Black Saturday", as it claimed the lives of Brian Hamilton, Frank Kennedy who died of his injuries months later, and Tom. In the last lap of the last race, Tom had been fighting for third place when he crashed at Juniper Hill, within sight of the chequered flag. He died later in hospital, leaving behind his wife Andrea and twin daughters Kim and Zoë.¨

Gracias Stephen excelente nota.


Website: www.tomtwherron.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Herron-An-Appreciation/144444745617221

Una de las primeras fotos de Tom sobre la Suzuki oficial durante las prácticas.

Tom (18) en la arrancada con la braga prestada de Jon Ekerold.  La braga oficial de Tom se perdió durante las prácticas.