Rod Gould remembers his Francorchamps 1970 win: “It was very wet. Hardly surprising indeed!”

As a member of the Yamaha Classic Racing Team Gould will be present at the Bikers' Classics at Spa Francorchamps. Exactly forty years ago he won the Belgian 250 Grand Prix on his road to the world title that he conquered that same year. Gould was considered by some as one of the sport's deep thinkers. He laughs out loud. “Maybe that is a polite way of saying that I was a bit of a dull character?”

It was extremely wet that 5th of July 1970, remembers Gould. “Hardly surprising indeed”, he quips. Although Yamaha had decided not to enter a works team that year Gould and Swedish team-mate Kent Andersson did get factory support. “They were more or less the pre production bikes for 1971”, Gould explains. “We had electronic ignition and a six speed gearbox. Nothing too special, really. But it was fairly good material. Between Kent and myself there were no team orders. It was all quite informal.”

The 250 class was definitely Yamaha territory and saw former world champions Kel Carruthers Phil Read on standard Yamahas. Australian Carruthers established himself as Gould's main rival who also pushed him hard at the Belgian GP. “Kel and I lapped the whole race long and we were both convinced that we could win. But then during the last lap he slowed considerably and in the end it was an easy win for me. The rain probably affected Kel's Yamaha in that last lap. I liked racing on the long Spa Francorchamps circuit. You can't make up time in a second hand corner, but you can in a fifth gear one. And Francorchamps had plenty of those. They were dangerous as well, because there was nowhere to go if things went wrong.”

His win in Belgium was Gould's third victory of the 1970 season and from that moment on the Englishman topped the charts. At the pen ultimate race in Monza Gould could get the points he needed to clinch his first world title. “I had to win – and I did, by half a wheel over Kel, despite severe blocking by Phil Read! He clearly did not want me to win. If I had said so then, people would have said I was stupid, but at the beginning of the season I really thought I could pull it off, although competition was fierce. Kel and I had a good relationship and we travelled together through Europe. With Phil it was different, it was difficult to get close to him. When I won that Monza race it was difficult to absorb that I had achieved what I'd always dreamt about at school. It was very satisfying to be the best of the world. But the morning after the race I woke up in the paddock and it looked a pretty desolate place and I thought 'is that it'. There were nobody to celebrate.”

Despite winning two GPs and finishing on the podium regularly Gould lost his title in 1971 to Read. “That disappointment was bigger than the joy of winning in 1970”, he admits. In 1972 he claimed third position in what was his last Grand Prix season. “I visited the Yamaha offices in April of 1972 and they offered me a position in the team management for 1973 and I accepted. Apart from Agostini and Nieto in those days very few riders could retire from racing without having to work and I was offered the possibility of being involved on the other side of the pitwall. I wanted to retire as a world champion, but we encountered some silly problems and DNFs. I did enjoy my new job though, being heavily involved in racing.”

Gould, a ten time GP winner, had built up a steady relationship with Yamaha when he moved to the United States in 1967 and raced Yamahas as of 1968. In 2007 he joined the Yamaha Classic Racing Team for which he regularly rides on the team's 250 bikes. His first appearance for the team was on the Isle of Man that year. “That can be a very daunting place and I was glad it was over”, Gould smiles. “But after about five events I felt at ease. I guess you never lose the feeling of what you're supposed to do. Whether your body still can do what you know is something else. We do demos, we don't race. But it's a great privilege for us to relive our youths and it still gives me such an adrenaline rush to ride on the same tracks, with the same riders and bikes. As long as you can remember that you're not as sharp as when you were 20, you can have a lot of fun.”