By Dean Adams
Pat Hennen, America’s first 500 GP race winner is pushed off at Laguna Seca in 1976. Image by Geoff Nickless.
Hennen’s career ended when he crashed at the Isle of Man TT in 1978.
Why Hennen was racing the ultra-dangerous IOM TT after winning two Grand Prix and finishing third in the world championship (twice!) has always been a source of mystery and interest.
The savage crash was an unfortunate end to Hennen’s racing career and left him disabled. For a long time afterward Hennen would claim to have never raced motorcycles, or would insist that he was not “that” Pat Hennen.
