The bike was a Ducati Pantah that started life as a wreck. Bob had rebuilt it and, as Magee points out, “Had turned it into a superbike and ‘Bob Browned’ it.” Magee took to the bike like it was built for him.

Read our full feature on the Bob Brown Pantah here…

“I’d heard a lot about this young kid,” says Bob Brown, “People said he crashed a lot. But I watched him and kept an eye on him when he raced the RDs. I needed a rider as my rider at the time, Jeff Thyme, was getting married on race weekend. I decided to give Kevin a chance. It was the right decision”!

Kevin tested the bike and was immediately on the pace. In his first meeting on the Ducati, Magee won both Thunderbike races from Peter Muir. It was an astonishing result.

Check out part one of our Kevin Magee series here…

“I remember his face at the trophy presentation,” recalls Bob, “I think at the time Fat Head, as I called him, was an apprentice and he earned about $29 per week. You should have seen his face when he was handed a cheque for $700 with his trophy! He handed it to me, and I passed it back and said ‘No mate, that is your winnings’. He just couldn’t wipe the smile off his dial. He spent all of his money racing and he was always broke. I’ll never forget the time he drove his old ute into the Kookaburra Petrol Station at Melton and asked the attendant to put one-litre of gas in his car so he could get to my workshop. He really was a character!”

The 1983 season was a huge success for the duo. Kevin won the Victorian Thunderbike Series and the NSW Formula European Championship, a series that he won all but one race, and that was because he snapped a drive chain off the start!

“I remember his face at the trophy presentation, [Kevin] was an apprentice and he earned about $29 per week. You should have seen his face when he was handed a cheque for $700″ said Bob.

“We also raced in the Eastern States rounds of the Australian Superbike Championships, “adds Kevin, “Plus the Mallala round, where I set a new outright lap record. I won the Tom Phillis Memorial meeting at Winton also. It was a good deal for me. Bob paid for tyres, entry fees and tent site fees because we stayed in a tent. I got to keep the prize money!”

The essential element of 1983 was racing against the factory teams on the 680 Pantah. They were on 1000cc and 1100cc superbikes and Magee was really giving them some curry. That year he scored a third in one race against the factory boys and finished the championship fifth against the likes of Rob Phillis, Wally Campbell and Andrew Johnston.

Read more about Magoo’s time on the Bob Brown Ducati here…

“It was a good learning year for me,” says Magee, “Because I was finding out that I was pretty fast and getting faster against guys who I thought would hose me… We also did the Swann Series at the end of the year and I did well in that. Bob was a dedicated Seventh Day Adventist, so we wouldn’t practice on Saturday. We didn’t do anything and Bob wouldn’t even open his shop. We would do Friday practice and if there was anything that needed checking we would do it in the warm up on Sunday morning. It didn’t worry me at all though. I was being looked after very well and I had a great bike to ride”…

1984 saw Magee race the Bob Brown Pantah again, with the same race meetings scheduled as 1983, plus the plan to travel to NZ for the end of year races. But the season didn’t kick off too well…

“All I wanted to do that year was race against the likes of Wally, AJ and Phillis. Early in the year I raced the TTF2 Ducati for the first time. It was like a real GP bike. I raced two classes in the 1 Hour at Calder; Up to 500cc and 500 – 1000cc. I was chasing down AJ, who was riding the factory Honda V4 860 and had a big lead over third place. There had been a sidecar blow up in the race before on the back straight, leaving oil everywhere. Five laps in I tipped it into the right-hander through the cement dust. The front tyre hit the curb and I went down, catching my right pinkie between the ‘bar and the road. Now it’s permanently bent and I almost lost it. That crash put me out for six weeks”.

The next race was at Mallala. Bob Brown was on his way to Horsham to pick Magee up for the trip to SA. Meanwhile, Kevin was mucking around with a mate on a three-wheeler up in the back paddock of his family property. They were two-up, and Magee over stepped the mark and highsided. 

Kevin continues the story, “I looked down and thought, ‘Oops.’ My foot was looking at me. I’d broken my leg. I was out for another six weeks. Bob wasn’t happy”!

“Here I was driving into Horsham,” says Bob, “When someone flags me down to tell me that Fat Head was in hospital with a broken leg. I could have strangled him”!

When fit, Kevin did all of the same races as 1983, plus raced in NZ at Gracefield International (the only time Bob let Kevin ride on a Saturday) and the Wanganui Street Races, where Magee finished second behind Dave Hiscock, the then World TTF1 Champion, who was riding his Macintosh Suzuki 1100…

“1983 was tough but a good year. We were really giving all the superbikes a tough time as I was learning more about riding and how to control a bike when going so fast,” says Magee, “But by the end of the year I was really getting keen to get on the same machinery as the factory boys as I knew I could run with them”…

1985 was Magee’s third year without Saturday practice but he didn’t mind, as Bob was very good to him. It was a huge year in Kevin’s career… In the Australian Superbike Championships, Magee was really starting to get under the factory team’s skin. At Winton, he broke the lap record in the morning warm up – by half a second!

“The factory team bosses rarely talked to each other,” recalls Bob, “As it was very competitive back then. But that morning, all of the team managers were seen huddled together, talking to ACU officials and trying to get rid of us”!

Magoo continues, “We’d show up in a Falcon XD panel van with a trailer. They’d be in big trucks with all the gear. And we’d make them look silly”.

Magee’s results were getting him some recognition, and offers started to come in to ride other bikes. Bob was fine with it, as he could see that Kevin had a lot of talent and could go a long way. But they still had plenty to accomplish that year…

Check out our Rob Phillis “Legends” feature here…

Yamaha announced the RZ National Invitation Series, plus all States had their own RZ Series. Bob bought a bike for Kevin to ride in the State Series, while the RZ National Invitation Series bikes were supplied; You simply turned up, dug the key out of a hat and raced your lucky bike. The winner of the series was to go on and race in the finals in Holland.

Magee and Bob went 50/50 in earnings and debt. They won both the Victorian State RZ Series and the RZ National Invitation Series that year. Magoo was over the moon. He now had a chance to prove himself overseas at the final… But it didn’t happen…

“In May, Yamaha invited me to race in the Nippon Denso 500 with Michael Dowson,” says Magee, “We won it. And that led to more offers. In June Trevor Flood invited me to ride his Yamaha FZ750 road bike in the Calder round of the Aussieland Superbike Series. I finished third behind Wally and Phillis. That race confirmed to me that I could run with the best of them”.

In July Magee went to Japan for the first time, to compete in the Suzuka 8 hour with Rob Phillis on a Moriwaki CBX750. It was one week before the final round of the RZ National Invitation Series. In the second session Magee highsided on some oil and broke his scaphoid. He didn’t go to a doctor, but knew something was broken… Amazingly, Magee finished the race and he and Phillis crossed the line in ninth position!

Magee travelled home to compete at Oran Park, finishing third and winning the title. The Surfer’s Paradise Three Hour was coming up, so Magee went to the doc and got his wrist put in a splint. In a gut-wrenching decision, he handed his trip to Holland for the world final to the RZ National Invitation Series runner up in the series… Opting to heal up for the Three Hour, which he competed in. He also went on to finish third overall in a wet Castrol Six Hour, and second in the 750 class.

Late in the year Magee competed in the Swann Series on Trevor Flood’s awesome TZ750, finishing in the top 10 of the championship and having an impressive race at Surfer’s with then GP star, South African Dave Peterson. Sadly it was around this time that Kevin and Bob went their separate ways. Kevin’s career had moved forward but he was very grateful for what Bob had done and vice versa…

“Bob was the main reason why I was getting all these offers,” says Magee, “Without him and those Dukes I wouldn’t have been noticed”…

Bob agrees, “Those were probably the most enjoyable years of my life really. Fat Head was a great talent and I was happy for him to move forward. The old Pantah didn’t die. In fact it ended up even more of a weapon, and in the end Alan Cathcart bought it to race overseas. It’s in a museum in Europe somewhere now”…

By now Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki were ringing Magee and looking for his services for 1986. But, he decided to stick with Yamaha as he was getting to know Dowson.  Kevin was now a factory rider. The Marlboro Yamaha Dealer Team was born… 1986 was huge. Magee went on to win the Castrol 6 Hour, the Arai 500, the Lakeside Hub 300 and finish second in the Swann International on a YZR500. 

Mid way through the season, Magee crashed at the Winton round of the superbike titles, breaking his collarbone. The Suzuka 8 Hour was just around the corner, so Kevin had his collarbone screwed and plated. He went over to Japan and qualified a domestic FZ750 in fourth place behind Kenny Roberts Snr, Wayne Gardner and Christian Sarron. He finished second with Mike Dowson behind Gardner after crashing and losing a lap!

Later that year, Magee travelled back to Japan and finished runner up behind Sarron in the Sugo TBC Big Road Race… On return to Australia the pair won the Castrol 6 Hour, despite being penalised a lap for a push start during a pit stop.

The Swann Series result really got people talking. Rob McElnea only just won the series by a few points from Magee. Oran Park was a standout. Magee put the YZR on pole and won the second race. People still talk about that one…

Next we look at 1987 and beyond, where Magee’s International career started to rapidly take shape…

Kevin Magee GP Career Stats

500 GRAND PRIX

• 1st x 1- 1988 SPA
• 3rd x 2 –1987 POR. 1988 POR
• 4th x 6 – 1988 NL. 1989 AUS, USA, YUG, NL. 1990 JAP
• 5th x 9 – 1988 NAT, WGER, YUG, GB. 1989 JAP, AUT, FRA, SWE. 1991 MAL
• 6th x 5 – 1988 AUT, SWE, BRA. 1989 GB, BRA
• 7th x 4 – 1988 JAP. 1989 WGER, BEL, CZE
• 9th x 2 –1988 FRA. 1993 JAP
• 10th x 1 – 1987 NL

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

• 1987 15th/11pts (Yamaha)
• 1988 5th/138pts (Yamaha)
• 1989 5th/138.5pts (Yamaha)
• 1990 21st/13pts (Suzuki)
• 1991 19th/19pts (Suzuki/Yamaha)
• 1993 25th/7pts (Yamaha)

OTHER MAJOR RESULTS

• 1981 Millage RD250LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1982 Millage RD350LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1983 Victorian Thunderbike Champion
• 1983 NSW Formula European Champion
• 1985 2nd NZ superbike race, Bob Brown Ducati
• 1985 9th Suzuka 8 Hour with Rob Phillis
• 1985 RZ Master Series State and National winner
• 1985 TZ750 top ten Swann Series
• 1985 1st place Nippon Denso 500, Winton
• 1985 3rd Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour (on domestic Yamaha Superbike with Mike Dowson)

• 1986 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 1st Arai 500
• 1986 1st Lakeside Hub 300
• 1986 2nd TTF1, Sugo, Japan
• 1986 2nd Swann Series on YZR500
• 1987 All Japan TTF1 Champion, won every race
• 1987 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Martin Wimmer
• 1987 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1987 1st Swann Series

• 1988 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Wayne Rainey
• 1988 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1989 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour
• 1991 2nd / 5th World Superbike, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 1st / 2nd World Superbike, Phillip Island
• 1992 2nd All Japan 500 Championship
• 1992 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour

Kevin Magee is the only rider ever to have finished on top of the podium in the four premier class World Championships – World 500cc Grand Prix

• World TT Formula One 
• World Superbikes
• World Endurance 

With World TT Formula One now redundant, this milestone can never be broken.

The post Legends: The Career Of Kevin Magee, Part Two, Getting Recognised appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

It’s a warm Monday arvo and Tony Hatton (Suzuka 8-Hour winner, Aussie endurance, GP and production racing legend from the 1970s and 1980s) are sharing a beer with Kevin Magee in his local pub, a short walk from his harbourside home in the town of Vaucluse, the most exclusive millionaires only suburb in Sydney. I ask him where it all started. He pauses for a moment…

“There was a poster on the wall in the smoko (lunch) room at the bike shop I worked at during my apprenticeship. It was a picture of Kenny Roberts Snr on the black and yellow Yamaha. One of those above shots. I don’t reckon I ever walked past that poster without stopping to look at it. I was always checking out the tacho to try and work out how fast he was going… I was dreaming. But I knew that’s where I wanted to be…”

Kevin Magee was just an ordinary teenager who loved motorbikes. A dreamer from a small town. But there was a bit more spark in his eye than the average kid. The difference between Magee and most others was sheer guts and determination… 

There are very few riders in the world who have come through the ranks the way Kevin Magee did. So few, in fact, that those were the very riders he ended up competing against in 500 grand prix. For Magee, it was always going to happen. Nobody was ever going to stop the kid from Horsham in Western Victoria…

One of five boys and three girls in a family of 10, Magee spent his early years chasing his older brothers around the family property in Horsham, Victoria. A bit of a late starter in motorcycling terms (at least by today’s standards), Magee, coincidentally just like Beattie and Gardner, didn’t start mucking around with anything motorised until aged 10 when he acquired a Honda Dax minibike. But that wasn’t the first petrol-powered experience young Magee had…

“The first contact I had with a motor was a minibike my brother Damien built. We used wheelbarrow wheels and put a chassis together using water pipe and bolted in one of those old Villiers V-belt two-stroke singles. We shared it, and being the youngest at the time I was always chasing them around for a fang”…

“A bit of a late starter in motorcycling terms, Magee, just like Beattie and Gardner, didn’t start mucking around with anything motorised until aged 10…”

It wasn’t a great success, but Magee’s Dad could see what the boys wanted and that’s when he decided to get the Honda Dax minibike for them, one Sunday arvo from Peter Irwin… Magee’s other brother, Tim purchased a Honda CB125S road bike. 

“Back then we even had a watch one with an actual second hand on it,” Magee grins, “So things began to get competitive. We’d time each other around the dam and the back paddock. It was a case of ‘I can do better’ and it was great fun”…

Tim moved to Naracootie in SA and bought an XR75 and started racing. The Dax was wrecked by now and Kev had lost the tips of two fingers while trying to push start it.  Knowing this, and thinking Kev would do well, Tim took young Kevin to a few races and told him that he reckoned he’d be good at it himself. Kevin approached his parents and eventually a YZ80C replaced the Dax…

“My first race was at Edenhope MiniBike Club. I won a few races and would have won the last race but, with a big lead, slowed on a berm and fell over because I was going too slow to go up high… Riding gear on the day included desert boots, jeans, jumper, helmet, no goggles, and my brother’s winter road gloves the ones that reach your elbow’s, with rabbit fur inside!”

“Mum used to say I was never in the house unless I was asleep or had my head in the fridge”…

Later that year, just before Christmas, Magee’s father passed away. Kevin was only 16 years old at the time. Magee continued to ride that YZ until he was 17. The usual routine was, get up and have breakfast, ride the YZ, have another breakfast and then go to school. Come home and ride the YZ until it was too dark. It never got a piston in its life until it totally blew up, and Magee’s mate Damien Albury rescued Kev by rebuilding it…

The young Magee landed a job at a servo pumping petrol, cutting wood and mowing the lawns after school. This was to help him maintain his YZ and perhaps get another bike, but first he had to get transport. He managed to save up $135 to buy himself a pushbike to get him to and from work and school.

At around the same time Magee had his first ride on a 125. His mate Russell ‘Jagg’s’ Jagger had a CR125 and gave Magee a ride at a Horsham club day. Magee smashed ‘em, and decided it was time to get a bigger bike… Meanwhile, his brother Tim had bought him a CB360 to muck about on in the dirt! Magee reckons that he was the first person in the world to have a dirt bike with a front disc brake! Work experience as a mechanic at Center Point Motorcycles came next.

He had his sights set on an RM370 at the shop, and had put a $50 deposit down. But one weekend while riding with his bosses Baulch and Niewand, Magee impressed the B grade MX riders on 250s by catching them and checking out on mate Kym’s YZ125F. They soon convinced Magee to forget the 370 and by a new RM125N. Kevin borrowed some money from his Mum and bought the bike at cost price. He never looked back. Magee left school and started an apprenticeship as a mechanic at Irwin Motors, a Yamaha dealer and farmers supermarket. He started racing every weekend…

“I raced that RM with success for a long time, then one day Phil Needham invited me out to Mac Park for a ride day. I took the RM. We fitted some tyres to it and out I went. I had no gearing, so I was coming onto the straight in top gear on the rev limit! But it was great fun dicing to get second last, not last! I soon got a loan from Mum and bought myself and RD250F. I was on my Ls, but I didn’t have a car. So to get to work I’d get up, toolbox on my knees, ride to work, flick the stand down and lift the toolbox off my knees so as to not scratch the tank, then start work”… 

“I remember the first time I rode in the rain,” recalls Magee, “I asked Phil if I have to go slower in the wet. He said, ‘Yeah, a fair bit’. I knew I was doing 110km/h into turn one. So I slowed it down to 100km/h. Needless to say I ended up on my arse”!

Magee had spent 1980 getting the hang of the whole road race thing, and liked it, particularly how you came off clean at the end of the day – not covered in mud! He was determined to do more in 1981. 

There was plenty of hype around a new series for the equally as exciting RD250LC. It was called the Millage RD250LC Championship (sponsored by Doug Rober, of Stihl equipment) and Kevin was dead keen to be in it. He pestered his employers, Peter and Gordon, until they eventually gave in and sold him an LC at cost, $1600.00.

“I won the championship using second-hand tyres. Jagg’s and I would sleep in his bench seat FC Sedan at Benalla Caravan Park and scab tyres out of the bin on Sunday nights! I remember that I really needed a front slick for Winton but couldn’t afford it, so Niewand and I put the rear slick off the TZ on the front of the LC and made a new mudguard to fit over the monster tyre. Everyone bagged it, then I torched them…”

Magee also raced it in 250 to 1000cc open races and did well in those. It was push start in those days, and he could start the LC with one nudge. It’d take the TZs until the last lap to catch him. Magee won a YZR30 pocket bike for his efforts, and he’s still got one!

In 1982 Magee started to think about racing a bit more seriously. It was at about this time that the Kenny Roberts poster started to get his mind ticking. He realised that he could do something with this…

“At the time, Young Magee was watching the likes of Rob Phillis, Malcom ‘Wally’ Campbell and Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnston, and aspired to the factory guys…”

“I bought a 1976 TZ350C for $800, or $1000 with rims for wets from Niewand… I crashed the thing but thought, OK, where next? I needed to get to A grade… At the time I was racing in anything I could, 250 – 1000cc events and all that. I raced a borrowed 350LC and won the  again, and I got to A grade on the TZ”.

At the time, Young Magee was watching the likes of Rob Phillis, Malcom ‘Wally’ Campbell and Andrew ‘AJ’ Johnston, and aspired to the factory guys mainly because he wanted to ride the bikes and test himself against the best.

Magee broke the outright lap record at Mt Gambier, which had been set by Rob Phillis on a Mick Hone’s GSX. He also beat Paul Feeney in a reverse direction wet race at Winton. Feeney was on full wets, Magee on an RD350LC on proddie tyres…

“In 1982 Magee started to think about racing a bit more seriously. It was at about this time that the Kenny Roberts poster started to get his mind ticking.”

In August or September 1982, at the final round of the Millage RD350LC series, Magee was in the pits hand fitting a front tyre to his LC. He’d been getting front chatter and was dead set on beating John Harmen for the title. Magee continues the story…

“I was busy with tyre levers and all that, and I looked up and there’s this guy looking over my shoulder. I shrugged him off watching and kept working. Then he came back and introduced himself as Bob Brown. He told me he needed a rider for his Ducati for the Swann Series. It was a Friday and that afternoon I was on the bike testing. I went 2.5-seconds faster than the fastest guy! “

Magee went on that weekend to take the LC series and also race the Bob Brown Ducati, winning both races from Peter Muir at Swann Series at Sandown Series. It was the start of an incredible decade for Kevin Magee, and the biggest turning point in his racing career.

Next, we look at Kevin’s years on the Bob Brown Ducati, and how he and Bob wrote themselves into the motorcycle racing history books by taking on the big guns on factory backed machinery…

Kevin Magee GP Career Stats

500 GRAND PRIX

• 1st x 1- 1988 SPA
• 3rd x 2 –1987 POR. 1988 POR
• 4th x 6 – 1988 NL. 1989 AUS, USA, YUG, NL. 1990 JAP
• 5th x 9 – 1988 NAT, WGER, YUG, GB. 1989 JAP, AUT, FRA, SWE. 1991 MAL
• 6th x 5 – 1988 AUT, SWE, BRA. 1989 GB, BRA
• 7th x 4 – 1988 JAP. 1989 WGER, BEL, CZE
• 9th x 2 –1988 FRA. 1993 JAP
• 10th x 1 – 1987 NL

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

• 1987 15th/11pts (Yamaha)
• 1988 5th/138pts (Yamaha)
• 1989 5th/138.5pts (Yamaha)
• 1990 21st/13pts (Suzuki)
• 1991 19th/19pts (Suzuki/Yamaha)
• 1993 25th/7pts (Yamaha)

OTHER MAJOR RESULTS

• 1981 Millage RD250LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1982 Millage RD350LC State Champion (Vic)
• 1983 Victorian Thunderbike Champion
• 1983 NSW Formula European Champion
• 1985 2nd NZ superbike race, Bob Brown Ducati
• 1985 9th Suzuka 8 Hour with Rob Phillis
• 1985 RZ Master Series State and National winner
• 1985 TZ750 top ten Swann Series
• 1985 1st place Nippon Denso 500, Winton
• 1985 3rd Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour (on domestic Yamaha Superbike with Mike Dowson)

• 1986 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1986 1st Arai 500
• 1986 1st Lakeside Hub 300
• 1986 2nd TTF1, Sugo, Japan
• 1986 2nd Swann Series on YZR500
• 1987 All Japan TTF1 Champion, won every race
• 1987 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Martin Wimmer
• 1987 1st Castrol 6 Hour
• 1987 1st Swann Series

• 1988 1st Suzuka 8 Hour with Wayne Rainey
• 1988 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1989 1st TBC Big Race, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour
• 1991 2nd / 5th World Superbike, Sugo, Japan
• 1991 1st / 2nd World Superbike, Phillip Island
• 1992 2nd All Japan 500 Championship
• 1992 2nd Suzuka 8 Hour

Kevin Magee is the only rider ever to have finished on top of the podium in the four premier class World Championships – World 500cc Grand Prix

• World TT Formula One 
• World Superbikes
• World Endurance 

With World TT Formula One now redundant, this milestone can never be broken.

The post Legends: The Career Of Kevin Magee, Part One, Early Life appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....