&#ПОПРОБОВАННОМУ КАК СЛЕДУЕТ and carousers extraordinaire carried on like few sportsmen before or since. Here's 20 things you never knew about the playboys of the pit lane.
1. James Simon Wallis Hunt was born into a family with a thing for danger. While his father Wallis survived a grenade attack at the height of World War 2, his brother David competed in Formula 3000 in the mid-1980s. Meanwhile, another sibling Tim – who’d enjoy some success as a model – was a fully-paid up member of the Dangerous Sports Club along with Monty Python’s Graham Chapman.
2. Raised in Putney, Barry Sheene had an eye for the ladies at an early age; he lost his virginity in the crypt of St Martins In The Field Church aged 14.
3. One of those annoying bastards who could do anything, James Hunt was a gifted trumpeter, a county-level squash player and a Junior Wimbledon competitor.
4. Barry Sheene once said of his wife, Page 3 model Stephanie McLean; “If there was a computer where you could punch in a woman’s boobs, backside, legs and personality, I’d come out with her.” And they say romance is dead.
5. During his early years, Hunt competed in colours baring the slogan ‘Sex – Breakfast Of Champions’. He’d often get his end away the morning of a race, and, prior to the crucial 1977 Japanese Grand Prix, was discovered receiving oral sex from a local girl just half-an-hour before race time.
6. When he came off his bike at Daytona in 1975, Sheene, who skidded fully 200 yards down the track, left enough skin on the circuit to cover a sofa.
7. Hunt was a big fan of public urination, or as he referred to it ’splashing’. Places Hunt ’splashed’ included a three-star restaurant on the Croisette in Cannes and the business class section of a BA flight.
8. Barry Sheene so detested Finland’s Imatra circuit that he once blew up a Portaloo in protest at having to compete there.
9. Rumoured to have bedded over 5,000 women, James Hunt was also very keen on the other sort of bird. A champion budgerigar breeder, he took to eating all of his meals with his parrot Humbert on his shoulder, a habit that put pay to his marriage to the second Mrs Hunt, Sarah.
10. Although he loved speed, Sheene was keen to promote safety and spoke out against using the Isle Of Man’s TT circuit to host Moto GPs – in the 103 years of the TT Races, over 210 people have died.
11. Having won his second consecutive Motor GP title in 1977, Barry Sheene boarded a flight to Japan to see if his friend James Hunt could secure a unique double. Our man became Formula One champion after finishing third in a race so beset by rain, arch rival Niki Lauda withdrew after two laps, claiming that to continue would be ’suicide’.
12. “And what are you going to do next?” said World Of Sport’s Dickie Davies in a post-World Championship-winning interview with Sir James. “Get drunk,” the former public schoolboy replied. And that, footballers, is how you do a post-match interview.
13. After overtaking arch-rival Kenny Roberts with an audacious manoeuvre at the 1979 British Grand Prix, Barry Sheene did what any self-respecting Englishman would do and flicked the ‘Vs’ at the American, thus guaranteeing himself a place in the national sporting pantheon.
14. James Hunt made and lost millions – failed nightclubs and restaurants gobbled up his fortune. At his lowest ebb, he kept his Mercedes on bricks to avoid paying road tax.
15. The Sheenes made a bid for movie stardom in 1984. The film they made together, Space Riders, is solely remarkable for featuring a re-enactment of Barry’s infamous crash at Silverstone in 1982 and for co-starring Marina Sirtis, aka Next Generation’s Counselor Deanna Troi.
16. A huge fan of Hunt’s bravado and derring-do, 2007 world champion Kimi R?¤ikk?¶nen entered a Finnish snowmobile race using his hero’s name as an alias.
17. Barry Sheene emigrated to Australia in the 1980s, settling down on Queensland’s Gold Coast. While he had some regrets about leaving his homeland, his vast number of pins and plates left him unable to tolerate the brisk English winters.
18. Forget the drink, the cocaine and the 60 cigarettes a day – there’s some evidence to suggest James Hunt was done in by his addiction to gold top milk; he drank pints of the stuff, straight from the bottle.
19. Following his retirement, Barry Sheene was diagnosed as suffering from ME. After spending ??250,000 looking for a cure, he found relief courtesy of Professor Vijar Kakkar who recommended a course of regular immersion in freezing cold water.
20. James Hunt died in his sleep from a heart attack aged just 45. Barry Sheene succumbed to tumours of the throat and stomach aged 52. Asked by his nurses whether was allergic to anything, Sheene solemnly replied ‘Cancer’.
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