"Gentleman John" Woodley

A tribute from fellow Farm Forester, Tony Richardson

(with thanks to Australian Motorcycle News for some of the words and photos, https://amcn.com.au/editorial/gentleman-john-john-woodley)

Many locals in the Triangle District know of John Woodley as the guy from Taggerty who planted trees. Indeed in the past 20 years, he prepared and planted nearly 100,000 trees for us at two tree farms in Thornton and Kanumbra, and has done similar jobs for many others around the region.

However, many will not have drawn a connection between the John they know and the mural painted on the side wall of the Davenport Motorcycles building as you head north out of Alexandra. And yet they are one and the same John Woodley!

Born in Motueka at the northern end of the south island of New Zealand, John joined the NZ Air Force in 1968 as a mechanic, before deciding to take his interest in motor cycles to another level. In the early 1970’s, John became one of Australasia’s most talented privateer road racers who had the mindset and ability to go all the way in international motorcycle racing. If not for a string of ill-timed machine failures and a pre-season crash on the way to Europe, this Kiwi rider may well have been on his way to a works contract; instead, in the late 1970’s, he was on his way home to start a new life in Australia.

Although his name became synonymous with the design and riding of Suzuki RG500s during the 1970s (several of which resided in his garage at Taggerty until relatively recently), he started out racing in 1971 in New Zealand on a variety of bikes which were far from the best available machinery.

But his skill and sheer tenacity saw him establishing track records, and taking several wins against top riders (and better equipment) in New Zealand in the mid 70’s. Only unreliable machines stopped him from doing better. Nonetheless, this didn’t stop him from winning the 1974/75 New Zealand 350cc racing title, while finishing second in the 500cc championship.

After several years of racing in NZ, John decided to venture “across the ditch” and in 1976 he travelled to Australia to ride in the Easter meeting at Bathurst’s Mount Panorama, where he won the 500cc race by a good margin at his first attempt. Later that year, he finished third in the Rothmans F750 series at Oran Park, in a race which many have described as “the best race I’ve ever seen”! Riding a 500cc Suzuki, John was up against two classic riders in Warren Willing and Gregg Hansford, both on 750cc machines. For 25 laps, the three battled each other and took turns (including John) in the lead. While the two bigger machines blew past John down the long straight, he was magic in the tight turns and made up the leeway every lap. Until with two laps to go, John was baulked by a slower rider being overtaken, and Hansford and Willing drew away to fight out the last lap by themselves. The race was so riveting that it went for 26 laps, when the officials failed to display the flag signifying the start of the last lap. Perhaps everyone just wanted to see more of racing like that!

John followed that up by taking victory at the 1976 Selangor Grand Prix in Malaysia, and ended a hectic 1976/77 New Zealand season tied on points with Stu Avant for the New Zealand 500cc title.

Back in Australia in 1977, Gentleman John – a nickname bestowed on Woodley for helping out his fellow competitors – took victory in the Easter Grand Prix 500cc race, during his second Bathurst appearance. John then headed to Europe with a new Suzuki RG500 MkII. In those days, international motorcycle racing was not quite as glamorous as it is these days, and John shared a transit van and a tent, which doubled as a mobile workshop, with another Kiwi rider.Their first race was the ultra-fast North West 200 in Northern Ireland, however engine gremlins plagued John. Despite little practice, he had worked his way past the legend Steve Parrish and was about to pass race leader John Williams when his RG500 seized up. Despite that, John set a new lap record: 1.2 seconds faster than Williams’ old record.

The Kiwi trio of Stu Avant, Dennis Ireland and John then headed for Circuit Paul Ricard in France, where he was happy to finish 14th in his Grand Prix debut. Despite machine problems on numerous occasions, by the end of the 1977 season, the Kiwi privateer held lap records at 10 circuits around the globe; clearly, he was fast, but he needed more reliable (factory) bikes to get to the end of more races.

John didn’t compete at Bathurst in 1978, but won the Penang GP that year. Back in Europe, 1978 had the potential to be his best season ever with backing from prominent UK sponsor Sid Griffiths Racing, who supported Stu Avant the previous year. Woodley was provided with a van for transportation and a caravan for accommodation, along with an ex-Warren Willing TZ750, as well as the latest RG500 MkIII; things were starting to look up, bike-wise.

John competed at the legendary Isle of Man in 1978, bagging ninth in the Senior TT (RG500), and was running sixth in the Classic TT until his TZ750’s engine seized. It wasn’t the greatest of years, but on the way home he bagged second in the Selangor Grand Prix, setting a new lap record along the way.

Back in New Zealand, things were a little easier, and John picked up three more New Zealand titles in the ’78 and ’79 summer season.

Racing a Team Hunter Suzuki RG500 at Bathurst in 1979, John had a colossal fight during the Unlimited GP with Graeme Crosby (KR750) and Ron Boulden (TZ750E) in one of the greatest races of all time at the mountain. After all three swapped paint the entire race, John lead the final lap heading onto the long Conrod Straight on his slower Suzuki (memories of the Oran Park dice with faster 750s). Boulden’s 10kph faster TZ750E then flew past Crosby and John to take the win. John was third, with worn-out brake pads working on the metal. All three received a standing ovation from the crowd, and it was John who set the fastest lap of 2m15.6s.

Overall, his record in Australia was not too shabby, picking up the Australian 500cc title three times at Bathurst, in 1976, 77 and 79.

By this time, as he was on his way back to Europe, John was riding at his absolute peak. But when he got to Penang, he fell off in a preliminary road-race and broke his wrist in eight places after hitting a cast iron fire hydrant! At that point in time, he had starts lined up in every world championship grand prix for 1979. They had spent two years to get all the credentials worked out, and all the organisers had agreed to give him a start. But he couldn’t take them up, because of a fall, in a race in which he didn’t really need to be taking part. He was forced out for 14 weeks, ruining any chance of a good European showing at the peak of his career.

When he recovered, John took out the 1979 Selangor GP and closed out the grand prix year with a ninth position in the final-round French GP. The following year, John made his fourth European visit, racing the latest RG500 and a TZ250. Good results came, however the usual reliability issues struck at the worst of times. He delivered good results at some international meetings, but not at the GP events. Misfortune then struck again, after clipping a curb and breaking his knee in Czechoslovakia. He then had a hernia operation, which scuttled the 1980/81 NZ season, and crashed in Penang and badly cut his knee. With all these incidents, John decided that maybe he should heed the hidden message, and retired from competitive racing.

I was reminded of John’s multiple motorcycle injuries many years later, when John was working in the silviculture industry. I got a call from John from Western General Hospital saying that he had had an accident on his quad-bike while doing some tree-planting to the west of Melbourne, and had cracked a couple of ribs. Could I come down and drive him back to Taggerty? When I got to the hospital, John told me the story about the nurse returning with the x-rays and saying “I’m sorry Mr Woodley, you have a few more injuries than we suspected”, as she held the x-rays to the light for John. John did all he could to not laugh (“it only hurts when you laugh”), as he explained that most of the fractures were old injuries from his time as a motorcycle GP racer.

One of my favourite photos of Woodles, which linked his two professions/loves, is from when he was planting our first plantation at Blue Range Close, between Taggerty and Thornton. Even as a forester, he still liked to zip along on his quad bike, looking like Sir Lancelot!

For the past 25 years, John has worked in the silviculture industry in his company Farm Forestry Services, and along the way has transformed his Taggerty property from a bare paddock to a magnificent Arboretum. After retiring from racing, John took several years break from riding altogether, but then began to ride socially with lots of mates from his racing days. But you can never keep a good man down, and so in 2015 at age 65, he staged a comeback to racing when he agreed to take part in a number of meetings, including the  three-race Suzuki Tri-Series, in New Zealand, riding his brand-new MV-Augusta.

John showed that he could still keep up with “the young-uns” and had several creditable finishes. But a shoulder injury during weight-training in 2017 put paid to John’s racing future, and he returned to Taggerty to further develop the Arboretum property.

Gentleman John; what a perfect name, both during his racing career and as a valued member of the Taggerty and Farm Forestry community.