Remembering Bob MacLean

 

By Peter Clifford

 

Thanks for running an obit on Bob. He was the very best friend and business partner anyone could wish for. A total enthusiast who put a huge amount of effort into supporting so many riders. He had tremendous success racing in the U.S. with Rich Schlachter, Kork Ballington, Wayne Rainey etc. before we started the World Championship Motorsports (WCM) 500cc Grand Prix team.

 

Then he enabled us to do fantastic things as WCM, becoming the best privateer 500cc team with riders that included Peter Goddard, Niall Mackenzie, Neil Hodgson, Andrew Stroud, Mark Willis and Kirk McCarthy which gained us Yamaha’s respect so that they offered us the factory bikes in 1997. Then, with riders such as Luca Cadalora, Troy Corser, Simon Crafar, Regis Laconi, Garry McCoy, John Hopkins, Jean-Michel Bayle and Alex Hofmann we won GPs and competed for the 500cc World Championship. 

When the class switched to MotoGP and Yamaha could not supply us with bikes, we built the WCM MotoGP machines and ran Chris Burns, David de Gea, James Ellison, Franco Battaini and Youichi Ui.

Bob did all of this and built a huge population of friends around the world, far beyond the riders involved: The team members all looked up to Bob and appreciated his wonderful drive and good humor as well as unwavering support. Bob MacLean was unique and very special. May he rest in peace…