Mike Hailwood. British Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Hailwood was known as "Mike The Bike" because of his natural riding ability on bikes with a range of engine capacities. Later in his career he went on to compete in Formula One and other classes of car racing, becoming one of the few men to compete at Grand Prix level in both motorcycle and car racing.

He died following a road traffic accident in Warwickshire, England.

At his funeral Hailwood's pall bearers included James Hunt, John Surtees and Giacomo Agostini. His abilities on his bike can be measured in titles, 12 times a winner in the Isle of Man – "the scariest race in the world" – and nine times the Grand Prix Motor Cycling champion, as well as the less quantifiable but no less obvious esteem in which he was held by the sport.

Hailwood revelled in the "here today, gone tomorrow" attitude that pervaded motorsport in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a dangerous game, and it was treated as a game. "He was a little bit wild," said his wife, Pauline. Walker put it another way: "He was a party animal." Legend has it Hailwood taught Hunt how to party.

For a time Hailwood swapped two wheels for four. He drove in Formula One, competing in 50 Grands Prix. He finished on the podium twice, as he did once at Le Mans, making a decent fist of driving for lesser teams, believed Jackie Stewart.

Motorcycling was his true love and in 1978, after more than a decade out of the sport, he got back on his bike for another go at the Isle of Man TT, a race he had first ridden as an 18-year-old in 1958.

He was unfit, "pot-bellied" Walker suggested, and out of touch with the sport and its developments. He was given no chance; sure enough he won. A year later Hailwood had one last go around the island before giving up his sport for good. Two years later he was dead.

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Description: Mike Hailwood lies alongside his daughter, Michelle, in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalene in the Warwickshire village of Tanworth-in-Arden. A black gravestone records the names and age of the two, the nine-year-old girl and her father, aged 40. There is also an inscription for each. Hailwood's reads simply: "Too good in life to be forgotten in death." For Murray Walker, Hailwood – "Mike the Bike" as he was known – was a good deal better than even that. According to Walker, Mike Hailwood is the "greatest motorcycle rider who ever lived". Walker was close to Hailwood but his judgement is not coloured by friendship – he is just one among plenty who hold up Hailwood as the best man on two wheels, indeed one of motorsport's greats, even if he remains unknown to many beyond his sport. "Motorsport had lost a friend and one of the greatest people who has ever lived in it," said Walker. Date of birth: 04/02/1940 Date of death: 03/23/1981 Area of notoriety: Sports Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Dawn - Dusk Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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