From cancer to horror crashes – a Superbike champ’s life at the top
Last updated 13:21, Thursday, 18 September 2008
Ex-Superbike star James Whitham did not need a map to find Cumbria on his flying visit last week.
The popular Yorkshireman, in Carlisle to promote his new autobiography, was no stranger to the county when among Britain’s top speedsters at the turn of the decade.
He was a regular at Penrith’s family-run Lloyd’s Lifestyle, who supplied him with his leathers and helmets.
“There used to be a transit van in the car park all the time,” he recalled. “There was a little fella, I think he was 15, living in it with his dad.
“He was competing in the British 125cc championship, which was all he could race in at his age.”
The Aussie teenager, now 23, turned out to be Casey Stoner, who a few years later would be a megastar of MotoGP.
“I remember George Lloyd saying he was good, and he turned out to be a world champion, so George was right,” James added.
“It struck me that anyone who got off their backside and went half-way around the world to chase a dream would go a long way.
“He had a lot of self-belief even then. He knew he would make it happen. A lot of successful people have that belief.”
Another such star rider never seemingly plagued by self-doubt was Carl Fogerty, the four-time World Superbike champion and a close pal of the author, who pens the forward to his book, What a Good Do!
Foggy recalls first bumping in to James at the Manx Grand Prix of 1985, when impressed with his speed.
“At the end of the race – which I won of course! – I asked where that guy Whitham had finished, only to learn that he had crashed going over the Mountain section during the final qualifying session and broken his collarbone,” the champ writes.
James, now 42, won a single World Superbike race – which is one more than most of us – in the oppressive heat and humidity of Indonesia in 1994.
It was a world away from the windswept Huddersfield small-holding where he was raised. And he describes being born in to such an environment as his “single biggest break in life.”
The former British champ had a few other breaks, notably his collar bone, five times, wrist, ribs, lower leg and pelvis.
But it was his fight against Hodgkin’s disease, a form of leukaemia, that presented his biggest challenge in 1995. He was 28.
Hodgkin’s is fatal in only around one in 10 cases, with 80% of sufferers making a full recovery.
Though chemotherapy is no picnic, even for a warrior like James Whitham. He did try to race while undergoing treatment, however, turning up at Cadwell Park one day hoping to take part in a British event “looking more like a ghost than a championship contender.”
James gamely took part in practice before a horrified nurse put an end to it by explaining that at a severe crash while on chemo could cause him to bleed to death.
A mere dozen pages of his book are devoted to Hodgkin’s, and he is clearly not big on self-pity.
“With racing, you get used to dealing with setbacks, especially injuries. Looking back, it really wasn’t that bad,” he explained, adding that when something goes wrong as a road racer, you try to fix it. You don’t sit down and feel sorry for yourself. It’s a definite possibility that something will happen.”
He received thousands of cards from well-wishers, with even the great Barry Sheene getting in touch. Ironic, as a few years later, the bike legend would succumb to cancer.
The following year and fully recovered, James finished runner-up in the British Superbike Championship, going one better in the Motorcycle News Man of the Year Readers’ Poll, taking the title for the second time.
“There’s nothing like a life-threatening illness to help with your popularity,” he chuckled.
Since 2003 he has been a familiar voice as a talking head on satellite TV channel Eurosport’s World Superbike coverage. He also dabbles in motor sport journalism and rents out property in Yorkshire.
As for the future, who knows? Cashflow doesn’t seem to be a problem and James is a happy man.
“I’ve got no mortgage or a desire to buy a Lear Jet,” he said. “At the minute I have more than enough for what my missus and kid do.
“I don’t worry about what I’ll be doing in 20 years. I might not be here.
“I live for today a bit more than a normal person.”
- What a Good Do, by James Whitham with Mac McDiarmid, published by Haynes Publishing, is available now, priced £18.99.
