Gary Hocking: An easy rider born to drive

Hocking was an instant hit on privateer Nortons, and MZ gave him his first works ride in 1959; he won first time out on its 250 two-stroke at Kristianstad in Sweden. He won at Dundrod, too. And all-conquering MV came a-calling. Its team leader John Surtees was making noises about switching to four wheels — he would successfully mix and match codes during ’60— and Count Agusta needed a new talent to pick up the torch. He chose wisely. Hocking finished runner-up to MV’s Carlo Ubbiali on the 125s and 250s and to Surtees on the 350s in his first year with the team, and leapt seamlessly onto its number one saddle when Surtees, a seven-time champ with MV, went cars for good in ’61.

“Gary was a very serious competitor,” says Surtees, “very determined and more interested in the technical side of things than Mike Hailwood. I felt happier leaving MV in the knowledge that he would be there to guide them.”

Hocking won 12 times in 1961, including seven of the nine 500cc GPs he contested, and secured that and the 350 title. However, the late-season arrival at MV from Norton of Hailwood — who promptly ended Hocking’s 500cc domination with a win at Monza — and the increasing threat from Honda indicated that a more testing ’62 was on the cards. Hocking’s win in the year’s Senior TT proved that his talent was still up to it; but his heart was no longer in it He flew straight to Italy to tell Agusta that he was retiring forthwith.

“Gary asked my father for advice about getting started in cars,” says Tim Parnell. Dad Reg was adamant that good biker rider equalled good car driver — Surtees was capably heading up his Lola GP squad — and Hocking seemed to be cut from the same cloth. “I had injured myself in 1961 and was out of racing that year,” continues Tim, “so dad offered him my Lotus.” The four-cylinder 18/21 was outdated in Fl ‘s new V8 era, but it would do — for now.

Hocking took the Alan Smith-prepared car to Mallory Park and planted it on pole for the August Bank Holiday Formula Libre race. He led it too, only to be denied a win by an engine failure. Tim was bowled over: “I have never seen anybody compete so fiercely and competitively in their first-ever car race — except perhaps John Surtees. They’re a different breed those bike boys. It was raining a bit and Gary was amazing in those conditions. Totally at home.

“It was a slightly tricky situation given that Dad had John on his books, but he knew that he had somebody else with incredible potential in Gary, and so he entered him in the Lotus for the Danish Grand Prix.”

In fact, it was Hocking who was the disappointed party when he got his first taste of V8 power. He qualified 11th for the Rand GP at Kyalami, 2.5sec slower than his lap record in the Lotus 18/21. Unhappy with the 24’s handling, he stuck at it manfully in the race and finished a lapped fourth, first local man home. There followed some hyped-up talk of him “doing a Baghetti” at East London’s South African GP in two weeks’ time, but Hocking knew that the intervening Natal GP at Westmead would be crucial to any chances he might have of upstaging the December 29 world title showdown between Jim Clark and Graham Hill. The new-to-him 24 was a long way from that honed-to-perfection, fits-like-a-glove Triumph and he wanted a number of changes made. Indeed, he was thinking strongly of reverting to the 18/21…

The 24 was going better at Westmead, though, and a spot on the outside of the Heat One front row beckoned. But Hocking wasn’t satisfied — “Once you’ve finished first…” His Lotus left the road at more than 100mph in the second session. He might have got away with it elsewhere, but this year-old track’s ‘run-off’ was littered with builders’ rubbish, boulders and just-cut tree stumps. The Lotus dug in and flipped. Hocking was dead and the theories began.

“Gary had a thing about not drinking before a race,” says Redman. “He used to say that it made you sweat more. Nobody really knew about dehydration in those days — you just jumped on your bike, or in your car, and got on with it. But even we noticed that he didn’t take in much liquid. The examining doctor said that Gary had been dehydrated enough to pass out — and I’m sure that’s what happened. That’s why there were no marks on the road. If his steering had failed he would have jammed the brakes on; if his brakes had failed he would have spun the car. He had the talent to get out of any situation.”

But Paddy Driver, a motorcycling rival of Hocking’s and a later four-wheel convert, has good reason to believe that mechanical failure was the cause. Driver made his F1 debut in the 1963 Rand GP, finishing 11th. Two weeks later he was trying to qualify for the South African GP at East London when his car left the road at speed and flipped. He was in a privateer Lotus 24.

“Its steering rack was from a Triumph Herald, and where the ball meets the cup was heavily radiused; ideal if you want a tight turning circle in your road car, not so good if you’re pulling big loads in an Fl car. I went over a bump just before a fast bend and saw the steering arm fall down.”

This experience, and a close friend’s eye-witness account of Hocking’s shunt, convinced Driver that Gary had suffered a similar failure: “He was accelerating hard uphill when the car turned sharp left. He was a long way from the preceding corner, almost at the crest of the rise. He would have had no time to react; I didn’t leave any marks on the road either.”

An examination of Hocking’s wreck suggested that incorrectly reassembled steering — he’d asked for a change on this item — might have been the cause. But suspension failure wasn’t ruled out. Only two things were beyond doubt: early-1960s F1 cars were fast and flimsy — and a great talent had been lost.