From our Archive 
This month
Little Bill’s big win,Brands Hatch - May 1965
Following our two-part Geoff Monty feature (December 2007/January 2008), a few readers have been in touch to say how about something on some of Geoff’s riders… so it gave an opportunity to air this photograph of one of Monty’s best known jockeys, Bill Ivy, here caught by Nick Nicholls’ camera at Brands Hatch in 1965. It was a controversial outing, being Ivy’s first ride having quit the Monty camp and signing up with the Tom Kirby equip.
The race is the 500cc Redex Trophy Race and Ivy rides a 496cc Matchless G50. ‘Little Bill’ is leading Rhodesian Paddy Driver, on another Kirby G50, ‘King of Brands’ Derek Minter and John ‘Mooneyes’ Cooper. The quartet were just four of the exponents who made road racing in Britain so exciting in the 1960s, with fantastic dices up and down the country – and occasionally on the continent too. This race was no different.
Bill Ivy became one of the UK’s highest profile riders in the 1960s. Though diminutive in physical stature, standing barely 5ft 3in and weighing around nine stone, Ivy made up for it with immense strength and agility – one of his popular party pieces was performing tricks while walking on his hands.
Born in Sutton Valence, Kent, Bill was apprenticed to the AMC factory but soon grew tired of his early apprenticeship tasks – mainly tea making and sweeping up – so found alternative employment with Maidstone-based dealers Chisholms. While working for them, Bill made his race debut on a 50cc Itom in 1959 – by the end of his first season of racing he held the class lap record at Brands Hatch. A road crash in 1960 slowed down Ivy’s ascent, but come 1961 he was back with a vengeance, racing a ‘kitted’ road-going 125cc Honda twin for the Chisholm brothers (Bill and Don) as well as a 190cc Gilera and the 50cc Itom.
Ivy then began a successful association with Frank Sheene, riding Yamahas, Bultacos and Itoms, before teaming up with Geoff Monty for the first time, riding Geoff’s 350cc Manx Norton and 500 and 650cc Monards. Chisholm Bros also stepped back in for 1964, providing a 125cc Honda CR93; it was on the pukka DOHC Honda that Ivy really cemented his reputation, becoming nigh-on unbeatable and winning the 125cc ACU Star.
However, Ivy still wanted more and despite his success on the smaller machines and Monty’s larger mounts, he was angling for a ride on the immaculately prepared, 350c AJS and 500cc Matchless machines of Tom Kirby.
Kirby, though, didn’t offer the machines – he thought Ivy needed to concentrate on either smaller or larger classes and was also uncomfortable with the fact that Ivy had started the year on the Monty bikes; Kirby didn’t want to be accused of ‘poaching.’ Ivy was told by Kirby that he had to make the decision and Ivy made the hard choice of abandoning Monty for Kirby, a decision which set the press and pubic against the fledgling tie-up.
Ivy’s decision was soon vindicated though. Here, in his first ride on the half-litre Kirby Matchless, Ivy sensationally heads for the Brands win. Cooper took the runner-up spot, Driver was third while Minter’s challenge was hampered by rear-wheel bearing trouble.
Around this time Ivy took up racing professionally, aided by the fact that as Kirby’s rider he was able to keep all his prize money (with Monty the split had been 50/50 between rider and entrant). Soon accusations of being a ‘big time Charlie’ were being levelled at the racer, not helped by his going out and splashing the cash on a flashy E-type Jag.
However, ‘flash’ or not, distracted he certainly wasn’t, as he was still doing it on the track and when Yamaha works star Phil Read put in a word and secured Ivy a chance on a works Yamaha, Bill grasped the opportunity and claimed a position in the factory team for the 1966 season.
Ivy won the 125cc GP races in Spain and Holland in 1966, then the 125cc TT, but his title challenge faltered at the penultimate round in Italy, though he garnered respect for winning his employer’s home GP, the year’s final race. In 1967 the wins came again, and with it the 125cc world crown. However, the year for which Ivy is most remembered is 1968. With Honda and Suzuki having withdrawn, the 125 and 250cc GP classes were effectively Read verses Ivy. In a famous battle that turned sour with protests and counter-protests at the final round after Read had clinched a double world title, reportedly against what Yamaha had planned, Ivy decided to take up four-wheeled racing, with a newly bought Brabham Formula 2 car.
However, in 1969 Ivy made a return to two-wheeled racing to support his four-wheeled aspirations, riding a factory V-four Jawa two-stroke. In treacherous rain, during practice for the East German GP, Ivy was barely touring when the Jawa seized. He was flung against a wall, his helmet coming off in the crash. Bill Ivy died of his injuries, aged just 26.
