Wheelie Wednesday with Richard Scott aboard the Team Lucky Strike Roberts Yamaha at the 1987 Assen TT. Scott progressed through the New Zealand and Australian racing championships before going to race the British Championships. He showed flashes of brilliance and Honda UK gave him a Honda RS500 to race in the 500cc Grand Prix World Championships in 1987. Despite racing on a shoestring budget, Scott turned heads when he scored a 10th-place finish in his GP debut at Jerez. When Mike Baldwin was injured Kenny Roberts, who’d met Scott at Daytona a couple of years earlier, invited Scott to ride for his Lucky Strike team as a fill-in. Scott found the factory Yamaha YZR500 a totally different beast than the smooth-handling customer Honda RS500 three cylinder. He had a massive high-speed testing crash and ended up in the hospital. Still battered with broken ribs and major road rash across his body Scott was in yet another bike-destroying crash in qualifying at Austria’s Salzburgring when a slower rider turned right in front of him going into a fast turn. Somehow Scott picked himself off the deck, in spite of a cracked hip and torn groin muscle. Doctor Costa gave him injections just so he could race and finished 11th in his debut as a factory GP rider. What Scott didn’t realize until later was that he’d also suffered a major concussion in the qualifying crash. He realized things were right, but continued to try to race and struggled through the rest of the season. He quit racing after that year and stepped away from bikes. Years later he was asked if he’d like to give it a go in a classic (vintage) class. He did, had a great time and became one of the leading vintage racers in New Zealand for a few years. He later became a motorcycle importer. (Henny Ray Abrams photo) #teamluckystrikeroberts#yamahayzr500#richardscott#500ccgrandprix#AssenTT#motogp
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