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Roy Hanks ( born 1948) Roy has been racing sidecars since he was 12 years old, first scrambling (now called moto-cross) and then road-racing when 16 years old, which makes this his 42nd season of racing, only interrupted by an enforced lay off after breaking his ankles and leg at the TT Races in 1988 where passengered by Tom Hanks (Roy's nephew), they flew off the side of the mountain at the 33 rd milestone. Tom sustained a fractured femur. Roy is co-director with his sister Beryl Daniel of Fred Hanks Motorcycles. Roy, up until the end of 2005 had been a member of the ACU Road Race Committee for 14 years, and a Director of the ACU since 1997. Roy is also Chairman of the TT Supporters Club. Roy's achievements over his racing years are too numerous to list, suffice to say , he has been at the sharp edge of sidecar racing in the Open class and latterly the F2 class for ever. Roy has won 40 Isle of Man TT replicas in this time, including winning the 1982 Sidecar TT overall, passengered by Vince Biggs, and remarkably in his 31st year of competing at the TT Races in 1997,won Race A, passengered on this occasion by Phil Biggs, (nephew of Vince). 2006 will be Roy's 40th consequtive Isle of Man TT Races. Since the 2000 season Roy's passenger in the Nationals has been Dave Wells. In the past 12 years the "flying grandads" have confounded their younger competitors, culminating in 2004 by winning the ACU/FSRA Super F2 Championship. In the 2005 and 2006 series they were relegated to 3rd spot , and in 2007 with new Suzuki GSXR600 engines, from a slow start they improved to take 5th in the series. In 2008 improving to 2nd in the British Championship series. After a bad accident in 2009 in September, they were both injured and finished 7th overall in British Championship. In 2010 they finished 7th after reliability problems, but bounced back in 2011 to take 4th place in the British F2 Championship. Sadly, Dave died in an accident at the Festival of Sidecars at Mallory, which didn't leave anyone in the sidecar fraternity untouched.
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