Formula 750 bikes set to swarm 77MM in new Sheene Trophy

For the last three years (although the snow got in the way this March), the Members’ Meeting has been provided with the unmistakeable attack on the senses that only two-stroke engines could produce. The 2019 edition, however, will feature an all-new sensory assault on two wheels.

Jumping back over a decade, the Sheene Trophy will see the finest air-cooled four-stroke Formula 750 racing machines go head-to-head, transporting spectators from the rolling hills of the South Downs to Daytona Beach and the legendary Daytona 200 races of the early 1970s.

Such was the success of the Daytona 200 that it was decided that Europe needed to have its own equivalent, and thus the “European Daytona” was created with the Imola 200. First run in 1972, Paul Smart rode his Ducati 750 Imola Desmo – considered by many as Ducati’s first V-twin – to victory, leading home Bruno Spaggiari in a Ducati 1-2.

The result signalled the start of Ducati’s full-on approach to motorcycle racing and it has reaped the rewards in the world of modified production motorcycles (Superbikes, in Layman’s terms), winning more World Superbike titles than all other manufacturers put together – despite its last title coming in 2011.

The all-new Members’ Meeting race, however, takes its name from another of F750’s finest sons – and an incredibly loved and greatly-missed friend of Goodwood – Barry Sheene. Sheene won the inaugural F750 Championship, a British-based series, in 1973, held one year after the FIM adopted F750 regulations as a separate class.

Tickets for the 77th Members' Meeting are now on sale.

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Photography courtesy of ISC Archives & Research Center/Getty Images and Jochen Van Cauwenberge.