Percy Tait

Nationality

British

Motorcycle racing career statistics

Grand Prix motorcycle racing

Active years

1968 - 1971

First race

1968 500cc Ulster Grand Prix

Last race

1971 500cc Ulster Grand Prix

Team(s)

Triumph

Starts	Wins	Podiums	Poles	F. laps	Points
4	0	2	0	0	33

Percy Tait (born 1929) is an English former professional motorcycle road racer and senior road tester for Triumph motorcycles, where he was estimated to have clocked over a million miles of road testing. He is now a farmer specialising in award winning rare breeds of sheep.

Tait gained useful knowledge of motorcycle handling during his National Service, when he was a member of the Royal Corps of Signals White Helmets Motorcycle Display Team.

Tait joined Triumph at the age of 21 in 1950 on the assembly line but was soon promoted to the Experimental Department and was encouraged to go road racing by his manager Frank Baker. Tait joined the Triumph works team and worked under Doug Hele on Triumph's chassis development programme through the early 1960s. He became the main test rider for the development of the three cylinder motorcycles which meant clocking up high mileages in all weathers and grueling sessions at MIRA and in wind tunnels. Triumph engineer Brian Jones was watching the Thruxton 500 endurance race for production motorcycles and saw Tait come into the pits after an hour on the track and plunge his blistered hands into a bucket of water. Following this Jones worked with Hele on improvements to the chassis which resulted in an Isle of Man TT victory. Testing could be also be dangerous work and he broke his collarbone when he was thrown off a prototype Triumph when the gearbox seized at the 1968 Isle of Man TT.

In the 1969 Belgian Grand Prix, on the Spa-Francorchamps racetrack in the Ardennes, Tait was riding Triumph's entry for the 500cc race - a version of the Triumph Daytona developed by Doug Hele. Percy travelled with the mechanics Arthur Jakeman and Jack Shemans in an old Ford Transit van, in which the three of them also had to sleep. Percy led the world champion Giacomo Agostini for three laps to finish second to the MV Agusta at an average speed of 116 mph. Also in 1969, he teamed with Malcolm Uphill to win the Thruxton 500 endurance race.

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