Jim Budd Motorcycle Racer

Don Cox wrote it best:

Greg Pretty, the superstar of the 1979 national season, has died in a road accident in the Adelaide Hills.

Pretty, 54, an airline pilot from Enfield (Adelaide), was riding his Honda with a group of friends on Saturday, January 16. Another rider, travelling in the opposite direction, strayed onto Pretty’s side of the road and collided with him head on. Both riders died at the scene.

Thirty years ago, Greg Pretty was the hottest thing in Australian road-racing. The sight of him sliding both wheels of his Yamaha-Pitmans TZ750F in the speedbowl section of Adelaide International Raceway was one of the classic images of the era.

This from a guy who honed his riding skills in the Hills on a Honda 750, riding most Sundays in the Phoenix Motorcycle Club’s run from Eagle On The Hill to Lobethal.

He won the 250 Production race at Bathurst in 1976 and from 1977 began racking up wins in long-distance Production races, In 1978 Pretty won the South Australian round of the national championship on his personal Yamaha TZ750.

During the 1979 season, this chirpy 24-years-old construction worker with the Zapata moustache won the Australian Unlimited Road-Racing Championship, the Swann Insurance International Series (beating among others world 500 championship number four Dutchman Wil Hartog), the non-championship Indonesian GP and the Sugo Big Road Race in Japan. He also won the Adelaide Three-Hour and Perth Four-Hour Production races, and finished second in the Castrol Six-Hour, on a Yamaha XS1100.

Ten or 20 years later, such results would have attracted great interest overseas Instead, Pretty went to England as a private rider in 1980 and struggled. Greg competed in the 1980 Isle of Man TT. He only had the Yamaha 750, so he was only eligible for one race, the Classic 1300cc TT.

He said later: “You had to ride there with the right attitude, otherwise you’d get hurt. I had very little official practice to jet and gear the bike. Eighty riders started in the race and 32 finished. Two were killed and I finished 25th after riding the last half lap at 15 mph because the steering damper had broken. I was happy with that.”

Greg came home in 1981 and restarted his great partnership with Yamaha Pitmans’ team manager Mal Pitman. In two months Pretty won the Coca-Cola 800 and the Arai 500 on chain driven Yamaha XS11 Pitman built, and the and the Bathurst Unlimited Race on his favourite TZ750F. He reckoned Pitman has a special way of motivating him, with quotes such as:  “I’ve never seen such an old chook on a motorbike”.

Honda Australia hired Pretty to race Superbikes in 1982, but the combination never really gelled. Greg put his efforts into chasing his commercial pilot’s licence from that point – save for a brief comeback in 1985. He later took up club racing in a Porsche 911 and maintained a life-long passion for building and flying model aircraft.

Greg maintained contact with many of his racing mates over the years and even toyed with the idea of a comeback ride in last November’s Six-Hour race at Oran Park.

He’ll be sadly missed, not just as a true local legend but a terrific guy.

* Rhymes with “Betty”

In Greg’s own words … how he met Jim at Bathurst:

My first meeting with Jim was at the top end of Mountain straight at Bathurst in 1975. I had travelled to Bathurst with a great mate towing a new trailer (which contained my 900 Kawasaki) he had built which unfortunately gave us grief all the way from Adelaide causing me to miss all the practice sessions for the Easter event. My first lap on the bike(a 1974 Z1-A) was actually in the production race which saw me start at the very back of the field because I had no qualifying time. This was a bummer because I was trying to make up ground which resulted in me colliding into the rear of Jims Z1-B at the top of Mountain straight with Jim being catapulted into the grass off to the left side of the track. When we both got to our feet and looked around, Jim looked at me with a strange gaze of mixed emotion and said “You’re Greg Pretty aren’t you”? To which I simply and in a very embarrassed way replied ‘Yep.” I still don’t know how he knew me but from that moment on we were good mates. I felt so bad for him having cleaned him up the way I did but he showed no animosity toward me whatsoever, so I really liked him! Jim and I always had a good laugh together which was easy with his dry easy going sense of humour.  When it came to selecting a co-rider for myself in the 1979 6 hour, the choice was easy. I knew Jim was available, so I said to Malcolm Pitman, “what about Jim Budd”? Mal was totally agreeable, so Jim was approached and he happily agreed. He rode with me in an extremely accomplished manner to finish 2nd after he had recovered from a bad accident at Amaroo Park earlier in the year.