My Ride, My Life: Dave Thorpe

“I can always remember going to the races with my dad as he rode locally and my little bike would be on the back of the trailer. I'd watch him race and then after I’d get to ride a little bit and that was really my treat.”

Growing up, two wheels wasn’t the only thing in Dave Thorpe's life, for an eventual three-time 500cc motocross world champion, it was football.  An opportunity with Queen’s Park Rangers nearly lead him down a path away from motorsport.

“When you ride your bike it’s you and the bike and I always felt sometimes that I’d get man of the match at football, but we’d lose and it never really sat right with me. Whereas on my bikes, when I sat behind the gate, I was in charge of everything. I guess if I asked myself then and now what did I enjoy most, it would always be riding my bike.”

So two wheels it was for David where his parents helped him on the road to success, his dad was always his mechanic and his late mum, who didn’t tend to come to the races, moulded him into the person he is today to tackle the mindset of winning and losing. 

It was a course at Hawkstone Park training school when he was just 13 years of age which was a defining moment in his life as the legendary Roger Harvey was his instructor one day.

“At the end of the day we got to ride the whole track which I'd ridden lots before and Roger rode with us, when he came past me I wondered if I could keep up with him. At the time, Roger was doing 125cc Grand Prix, so I set off behind him and lost a little bit, gained a little bit and we went over the finish line, he carried on, and I thought, I'll carry on with him. 

And then I thought, I wonder if he knows I'm here?  Then when we started to come back through the trees I saw him having a little look, so he knew I was there. We carried on around, I kept up with him and then we got to the finish line again, he carried on but I’m not going to lie my tongue was on the tank!

At that point I realised that if I worked really hard away from the bike, I’d got some pace and that’s where I thought that I'd love to be world champion.”

It was in the ‘80s that David Thorpe wrote his name in the book of motorcycling racing legends: he was crowned 500cc World Champion not just once but three times in 1985, 1986 and 1989 competing against the likes of Eric Geboers and André Malherbe.

“When I look back now during the eighties, there was a tremendous amount of riders who were capable of winning on the day, so for me I'm just pleased that I raced at that time because the crowds were really big, health and safety was less, everybody was closer, the atmosphere felt a little bit more engaging and of course, we were all riding 500 two strokes.

Racing for Honda Racing Corporation on the RC500, it was a bike that wasn’t for the fainthearted.

“It was without doubt the bike that was four or five years ahead of its time and HRC built a bike that in the wrong hands was an animal, the power was quite frightening at times. 

I was forever just making my bike more mellow, because I used to rev the bike a lot. If you look at André, Eric and me, we all had the same opportunity in testing, but we kind of all went in different directions, my bike was a four speed; theirs were always a five speed. 

The physical side of riding a 500 two stroke was tough, it was a bike that could run away with you. It was a bike that could get you in a lot of trouble very easily just because of the way the power come in. But, you know what? I kind of wouldn't change it for the world.  It's almost like people that ride horses, if you ride a stallion, you know you’ve got a beast under you and the HRC 500s in the wrong hands were definitely a beast, not in a bad way, but they were super bikes.”

Despite retiring at the age of 31 David had no plans to sit around and moved onto team management where he successfully led the British Motocross des Nations team to victory in 1994, an impressive feat as the last victory had been in 1967 and it also broke the American stranglehold of 13 straight wins.

“The nation's thing was relatively easy because you've only got a certain amount of riders to choose from, you work with them as best you can, you try and encourage them on the day but ultimately when they’re sat behind the gate they're on their own. So to win in ’94 was mind blowing, for them and me. For Paul Malin, Rob Herring and Kurt Nicoll it was probably one of the highlights of their careers and so it should be because it was quite an historical moment.”

As Honda UK’s Crendon Fastrack Honda Racing motocross race team boss, the change from rider to team manager hasn’t always been plain sailing and the adjustment was difficult at the beginning.

“I’d gone through my racing career a certain way and in the early part I thought my way was the only way, it was the right way. I was dealing with boys that were anywhere between 16 and 20, and of course I'm 25 years older than them at that point and my thought process and their thought process couldn't have been further apart. 

So after a couple of years I began to really think about the approach that I had with the riders and how it worked and from then and now, it's very different. I try to get to know the rider now, six or seven months before I enter any sort of agreement because quite often what you see at a race is not often what you see at home.  So I like to get to know them, I like to try and understand them and then with the staff that I have we try and work with them. 

We're there for guidance and we're there for support but it's a different animal than it was 25 years ago.”

Running a team is not the only thing keeping him busy, his Adventure and Off-Road Centre based in Exmoor National Park also has ties with Honda, the brand that have been so prominent in his life.  What came to him was an idea to be able to try out off-road bikes, a sort of ‘try before you buy’ that you can do with road bikes at a dealership. 

“If they've come and ridden and had a great day they ask what bike they should go and buy and it's quite a simple conversation, I’m a Honda person through and through, as everybody knows. But the one thing you get with the Honda brand is you ride it, you wash it, you do the basic maintenance, you put it in your garage or put it in your shed. You know that when you go back to it, you push the button, kick the kick start and it will go and do what it does, exactly what it says on the ticket. And it's that process of being able to ride it, look after it a little bit, put it away and know that it's going to be as good as it was the first time.”

Riding his Honda Africa Twin is something he enjoys and a trip to the volcanic landscapes of Iceland was one of the most exciting two weeks of his life that he’s had on a motorcycle as he joined Monster Energy Honda Team riders, 2020 Dakar winner Ricky Brabec, Adrien Van Beveren and Nacho Cornejo for Honda’s Adventure Roads event.

“You just can't find a better place for an adventure bike, the terrain, the sunshine, the rain, the snow, the wind, we had everything over two weeks. 

It was a really good team building exercise as well because some of the stuff in Iceland was really, really difficult, I was quite pleased to see my bed sometimes at night as they were long days and hard work!”

With such a successful career and one that clearly isn’t over anytime soon, David has little time for regrets although there might be one when it comes to his time racing with HRC.

“The end was one thing that I would have changed. I was racing all the way through the eighties with Honda and with HRC and at the end of ’89 I left to go to another brand. Realistically, looking back that would be the only regret I had because hindsight tells me that if I'd stayed with HRC, I'd have had another chance.”

As a world class rider it must be difficult knowing when to give it up and it was a point that he discussed with his Honda teammate and five-time World Champion, Eric Geboers.

“He always said to me, ‘You know what Dave, I'm going to win and then I'm going to quit.’ 

In 1990 he won the world championship, got on a helicopter and he went straight to the Belgium studios, announcing on national television he was quitting and he got his wish. 

My conversation with Eric was that I didn’t want to do that and he'd always ask me why. It was because I didn't want to get to my age now and wonder if I could have done it one more time, I wanted to know that whatever made me special in my racing career had just dripped away, that whatever was there had gone and I couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to have any regrets in my older life.”

With such a passion for motorcycles and racing, David Thorpe is the epitome of a gentleman whose name will forever be associated with motocross.

“You work all your life to be somewhere and when you finally get there and realise that the history books will say that you’re a World Champion, no one can take it away.”