Nick Harris - Never Say Never: The Inside Story of the Motorcycle World Championships

Nick Harris started his career on Motorcyle News and Motorcycle Weekly. He then became Media Manager for Rothmans Honda before switching to Formula One with Rothmans Williams Renault, where he announced the death of Ayrton Senna and masterminded the worldwide media coverage of Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuves world titles. He presented MotoGP on BT Sports for 18 years, and when he announced his retirement last year, over 1.2m fans tuned into his farewell Facebook video featuring Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez. He lives in Oxfordshire.

To Sheila and Sophie my loving support always.

Its amazing just how this has all happened. I was just two years old when Freddie Frith won that very first World Championship race at the 1949 TT on the Isle of Man not that anybody in our house would have noticed. There werent even any motorcycle riders, let alone racers in our family.

My dear old dad was sports mad: he earmarked me to open the batting and play scrum half for England the moment I emerged into the world at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. I didnt even open the batting for Magdalen College School second team, although I loved cricket and played for 50 years. And I soon realised I preferred playing football to rugby. Sorry, Dad.

I grew up in the village of Cumnor, near Oxford. I was a happy local boy who suffered from such acute homesickness that, as a teenager on holiday with my mates, I would send a postcard back home to my mum and dad every day. That I ended up with a dream job that took me around the world for 38 wonderful years would seem impossible to that young lad.

Playing sport and supporting the local football team, Oxford United, from the infamous London Road terrace were big parts of growing up. But it was on Saturday afternoons sitting in our lounge watching scrambling on the old black and white television when motorcycles first grabbed my attention. There was a not a family gene in my body that suggested any interest in two wheels, but my love of motorcycles and racing in particular had been sparked. I discovered Speedway at Cowley Stadium, and then, soon after, on a visit to Mallory Park I watched road racing and heard the piercing scream of real horsepower for the first time.

I plodded through my teenage years never worrying about my future and enjoying myself. Motorcycles and football dominated my spare time. Perhaps predictably then, I left Magdalen College School in 1964 with one O level, after two pretty pathetic attempts. And I only achieved such academic honours because the history master told us what questions to revise and he chose the right three. A friend of my parents offered me a job as a clerk in a local solicitors office, a role for which I was supremely unsuited. I spent most of my time thinking about my next visit to the Isle of Man, ignoring the brown folders mounting on my desk, and was told I couldnt attend meetings with important clients on account of my hair being too long.

My next job, working behind the counter in a sports shop, was altogether more suitable. I supplemented my income working as a disc jockey in the evenings, before I moved on to become the south of England rep for a Manchester-based sports company. Then, out of the blue, at the end of 1972, an offer came that was to change my life.

Id come straight from Thursday night football training to the posh house of local bigwig Tony Rosser up the Banbury Road. He was starting up a new project, a local free newspaper that was to be called the Oxford Journal, and he wanted me to become his distribution manager. I thanked him but said I was happy selling football boots and training shoes. He then offered me three times my current salary and, needless to say, I joined the Oxford Journal two weeks later.

Wed always loved newspapers, radio and sport in our house. Years earlier Id produced my own handwritten newspaper with pictures glued on and would commentate to my dad on rugby matches at Iffley Road in Oxford. Id never forgotten those early days but, deep down, I honestly believed the opportunity would never arrive. I assumed the highlight of any journalism career would have been back when our headmaster Eric Brodie had pinned my report on the Cumnor Primary School versus Dunmore game to the classroom noticeboard.

But, lo and behold, it was not long before an opportunity came to write a sports column for the back page of the paper. Just 24 hours after a pretty routine Monday morning for the distribution manager, scooping up wet dumped newspapers from among the used syringes and dog shit under Donington Bridge, I found myself on my first ever jet plane flight, sitting alongside a Scottish international footballer who had scored against England at Wembley. Out of the blue, I was being sent to Italy to report on Bologna versus Oxford United in the 1973 Anglo-Italian Cup. On getting back from the airport a few days later I was met by Tony Adamson from BBC Radio Oxford who asked me if I would give up playing football on a Saturday afternoon to come into their studio to read the football results and make the tea.

Of course Ive been so lucky since that first trip. I have often been in the right place at the right time without even realising it, but its also true that you make your own luck in so many ways. I felt vastly underqualified for the advertised role of general reporter at Motor Cycle News, but I went to the interview in Kettering anyway. Being made redundant when IPC closed Motor Cycle Weekly led to working with the Rothmans team, and eventually with Dorna.

In so many ways travelling the world reporting and commentating on the sport you love is just about the perfect job. Its the people you leave at home who are the real heroes. When one partner spends over one third of the year on the road in a high adrenaline environment, while the other is at home, bringing up the children, getting the washing machine mended and checking the mortgage has been paid, quite understandably it can lead to relationships breaking down. I have been so lucky to have had the support of my wife Sheila over the last 38 years.

In Austria a couple of years ago, my colleagues and Matt Birt in particular were gobsmacked when I had to borrow a Dorna white shirt because my wife Sheila had forgotten to pack mine. For 38 years, Sheila packed my case this was the first time shed ever forgotten the shirts. Another example of Sheilas incredible capabilities was when we moved house in 1994. I left home for the Formula One grand prix in Barcelona from one house and returned four days later to our new home. It was a miracle. I hadnt lifted a finger, and yet all the furniture had arrived and the gas, electricity and water were switched on for my return.

When I embarked on this adventure 39 years ago there was just eight grands prix to visit, and all in Europe. To watch grand prix motorcycle racing grow into this truly massive international sport has given me so much satisfaction. Last year there were 19 grands prix visiting 15 countries on five continents. The average crowd over a grand prix weekend was 151,802 with the new Thailand venue attracting 222,535. When Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta told guests at my farewell dinner that I was a part of that 70-year World Championship legacy I could not have been prouder.

Happy birthday grand prix motorcycle racing thanks for such an amazing ride. But the biggest thank you goes to my wife Sheila and daughter Sophie who gave me so much love and support throughout this adventure.