Bill Ivy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bill Ivy at the 1969 Eifelrennen held at the Nürburgring.
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Nationality | British | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Maidstone, England |
27 August 1942||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 12 July 1969 Hohenstein-Ernstthal, East Germany |
(aged 26)||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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William David Ivy (27 August 1942 – 12 July 1969) was an English professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer from Maidstone, Kent. He died during practice for a race in Europe.
Ivy started racing motorbikes at Brands Hatch, Kent, UK in 1959. His first race bike was a 50cc Itom.
Entering his first TT race in 1962 on a Chisholm Itom, he later progressed to ride a variety of machinery on UK short circuits including Honda, Bultaco, Yamaha, Norton, Cotton, and Matchless machines. He joined the Tom Kirby racing team in May 1965.
Ivy's big break into Grand Prix motorcycle racing came towards the end of 1965, when he was selected as a stand-in and flown to Japan in October by Yamaha due to regular rider Mike Duff crashing in practice for the Japanese GP, suffering a broken thigh. Ivy finished fourth in the 125 cc race and third in the 250 cc class, the highest-placed of the Yamahas. In 1966, he won his first race as a regular rider for the works Yamaha team in the first race of the year, the Spanish Grand Prix at the Montjuic Park Circuit, Barcelona in Spain, and took three more wins—not enough, however, to beat Swiss rider Luigi Taveri, who beat Ivy to the title by six points.