Bill Ivy
My experiences on 11th July 1969
Bernd Fischer
The first day of practice for the 1969 World Championship race for motorbikes at the Sachsenring was Friday, 11 July, a cloudy day with light rain showers. Together with my father and our Trabant, we arrived at the Sachsenring around 8 am. At that time I was 17 years old and already infected by the racing and photography virus.
Around 9 am I was at the entrance to the paddock when suddenly Bill Ivy drove up in his Maserati Ghibli. Full of excitement, I took my Praktica mirror reflex camera and shot a photo of the arriving Bill Ivy – my idol at the time. But just as he had suddenly appeared, he had immediately disappeared again into the paddock.
Since I didn’t have access to the paddock at the time, I decided to get access via the fence that bordered the paddock. That was no problem so far. However, I had to be careful not to run into the patrolling “Vopos” (People’s Police) and Stasi people. In case of emergency, however, I had a rather crazy plan ready for these people, which had already proven itself in other situations in a surprising way:
When they approached me and wanted to question me, I responded in a foreign language that didn’t actually exist. They couldn’t understand me because it was a gibberish invention of mine. It was a mixture of Swedish, Dutch and English-sounding words. Since they didn’t speak these languages either, they reacted insecurely and preferred to let the supposedly “western guest” go.
I then found Bill Ivy again quite quickly, exchanged a few words with him and asked him for an autograph. Since I didn’t have a photo of him with me, I had him sign the programme of the Grand Prix, which is still in my possession today (see photo). Of course, I also took some portraits of him.
Very excited and full of joy, I went to the stage “Unterer Queckenberg” afterwards, which was no problem on the first training day. From the bottom row, it was easy to take photos even without a photo pass, as the stage was very close to the track. In the process, my only two action photos were taken with the souped-up 350cc Jawa in the 500cc class, which Bill Ivy rode for the first and only time that day. Little did I know that it would also be the last time I photographed Bill Ivy.
On Saturday, 12 July, I went to the Sachsenring again with my father. This time we went to the “Jugendkurve”, which was popularly called „Nötzold Kurve“ because the stage was in the garden of the farmer Martin Nötzold. It was a rainy training day and Bill Ivy was nowhere to be seen, except for a single lap. No one knew why and there were no guesses at that part of the track at that time. In the evening, when the GDR news programme was on the television at home at about 7.30 pm, I suddenly heard the news from the “Ministry of the German Democratic Republic” that Bill Ivy had had a fatal accident at the Sachsenring. I was thunderstruck, having just seen and photographed him! But that’s exactly what happened. Bill Ivy had died a racing death, like so many of his fellow racers at that time.
For me it was not only a sad loss of my idol. It was also a kind of key experience that has engraved itself deeply in me and remains with me to this day. So I am reminded of Bill Ivy on similar occasions during my annual visits to the TT races on the Isle of Man, but also when there are reports of this kind from other areas of racing.
Bernd Fischer – Greiz, Germany