Motor racing legend Sammy Miller on 70 years of Belstaff's Trialmaster
This photograph captures me winning the 1962 Scottish Six Days Trial; it was the first of my five wins in that race. It was taken just above Kinlochleven in Fort William, and the state of the track gives you an indication of just how difficult that race was. The Scottish Six Days is probably one of the hardest tests of man and machinery, and every time I competed I did it wearing Belstaff.
It’s a beautiful route, the Scottish Six Days, taking in what’s called the Caledonian Canal – a series of lochs that interlink and were hugely important during the First World War–but you can’t look up from the track to take in the scenery. You have to concentrate. Over the years, I also developed many of my own bikes. You have to practise, study, design, develop.
But if you’re an engineer, it’s a great advantage – when you’re racing, you know what’s happening to the bike. The story of this particular photograph actually begins in Belfastin 1954, when I was a young man. I’d grown up in Northern Ireland, which at that time was a hub of motor racing.
I knew of all the Irish legends in the sport – Artie Bell, Ernie Lyons – and I watched it from as farbackas I can remember. By the age of six,I knew I wanted to ride and build motor bikes; by the 1950s I was a professional motorcyclist and had built my own SHS Samuel Hamilton Special bike.
I was looking for sponsorship for upcoming races and happened to see the name Belstaff in a racing magazine. The name was similar to Belfast, so I thought I would write asking whether they could they provide me with something to wear. Eventually, they sent me riding gear, although at the time they were more focused on hunting and shooting uniforms than motorcycling.
But after I won the Ben Nevis Trophy wearing that suit – it was canvas and nylon then, not the waxed cotton you have now – it kick-started a long relationship with the brand. I went to the Belstaff factory in Stoke-on-Trent and sat down with the managing director, John Wheelhouse. We came up with the waxed cotton material, which the skin could breath through yet was waterproof.
It became the Trial Suit. A few years later, this evolved into the Trial Master jacket that I’m wearing in this photograph. Winning is a feeling like no other: months and months of training and machine preparation culminating in that one moment. There have been challenging times, certainly.
The North West 200 in Northern Ireland is a great slog of a race – 200 miles of rough terrain, not like the sprints you get today – and one memorable year, the great Mike Hailwood and I engaged in a furious battle for the full distance, neck and neck, me winning it by the length of a bike.
Afterwards, they couldn’t get me off the machine – my legs had turned to complete jelly. And then there was the 1964 Scottish Six Days Trial, during which it rained for five of the six days. The track was almost washed away, but I think I ended up as the driest man in the race, thanks to the technology of the Trialmaster.
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