Renegade Racer

If ever a rider missed his vocation, it was Sean Emmett.

- Larry Scoop Carter

Immortalised in these very pages when the magazine was almost as lawless as he was, the toothy Londoner belonged to a generation where heel-raising was standard fare in th race paddocks of the world. He was one of the most naturally gifted riders of his era as demonstrated by his stratospheric rise from the club racing to Grand Prix stradom in just four years, followed by a journeyman route back through BSB, and then a fall from grace almost of Hollywood proportions; if they ever get around to doing a film on Emmett, it'll break all the records.

But it wasn’t all beer, fags and partying for the man nicknamed ‘Jack Daniels’, although there weren’t many race meetings that Emmett would attest to being clean at from start to finish. “I’m sure there were some sober meetings but I can’t remember them if that’s the case”, he says laughing. “In fact, in the end, it became a bit of a challenge to see just how pissed I could get the night before a race and then see where I could finish the next day. People would say to me ‘Sean, you don’t look well’ and I’d blame my state on something dodgy I’d had to eat the night before!”

But before the partying came the serious business of racing, which Emmett and elder brother Jason (a London policeman, by the way) almost stumbled into. Coming from a privileged upbringing and attending public school, where Sean excelled at most sports, especially Hockey where he played at county level, his prowess was curtailed when his parents separated and the opportunities at your standard comprehensive weren’t as bountiful.

Dropping out of college halfway through his A-levels as “I was wasting my time”, Emmett passed his bike test at 17 and got a job as a despatch rider in London which taught him the basics needed to follow Jason into the racing game.