Missile From The East

[KungFooBob]

9pm on Sky Documentaries tonight.

The true story of Ernst Degner, a champion East German motorcycle racer who risked his life defecting to West Germany during the Swedish Grand Prix in 1961.

Should be good, he defected and took his GP MZ with him... and Suzuki two strokes suddenly got a lot more competitive

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Have a read of Hugh Anderson's auto biography if you're interested in that period of racing.

[Yorick]

I enjoyed that, apart from silly long advert breaks

I love 2 stroke boffins. You can learn how a 4 stroke works from a book.
Not with 2 strokes. It's almost an art.

[KungFooBob]

I actually got round to watching this last night with my dad.

The urban myth was that he finished the GP, rode the bike into the back of a Suzuki van and they made off at speed before the Stasi could stop them. Turns out in real life it was a very different story and Suzuki never got a bike, just the knowledge that was in his head... that he'd learnt from the MZ head engineer.

All the ex-MZ guys they interviewed didn't agree with what he did, they felt betrayed. It was all a bit sad in the end (he ended up a washed out old racer drinking cheap beer in the Canaries).

They kind of credit the whole situation as being the catalyst that made Japan technologic and engineering world leaders.

It's on Sky's catch service, It's well worth a watch.

[Skub]

It was all a bit sad in the end (he ended up a washed out old racer drinking cheap beer in the Canaries).

That doesn't sound so bad to me.

[KungFooBob]

I only mentioned that to wind up Yozza

He was very successful with Suzuki for many years, until his bike exploded after a crash while he was trying to pick it up to restart and got horrific burns, he split up with the wife, spent all his money and moved to Tenerife to run a garage. The family got a message that he was unwell and his oldest son went to check up on him and found him dead.

[slowsider]

It was all a bit sad in the end (he ended up a washed out old racer drinking cheap beer in the Canaries).

That doesn't sound so bad to me.

As long as he didn't go on about it

[Yorick]

It was all a bit sad in the end (he ended up a washed out old racer drinking cheap beer in the Canaries).

That doesn't sound so bad to me.

Nah