HOSSACK

Norman was born in Scotland in 1946 but grew up and went to school in Umtali, Rhodesia. He built his first bike from scraps when he was 12 - a BSA Bantam. Later he owned a Greeves 196cc and later still, his favorite memory, a Ducati Mach 1 250cc. He also raced the Ducati for a season in Rhodesia where he got the racing bug.

In 1969 he moved to the UK in time to see the TT that year and the racing bug bit deeper. Though he liked the TT then, he grew to dislike it and now thinks it's irrelevant.

In 1970 Norman mechaniced for Gordon Keith, a fellow Rhodesian and Manx GP winner. He did the European circus with Gordon and learned a lot. The following year he raced his own bike, a Greeves Silverstone 250cc with Bemsee and Southern 67 clubs.

In 1971 Norman started on his inventing career, designing and building a lobe 2 stroke engine in which the piston crown and the connecting rod were combined. This engine ran well enough to push a go-kart but without funding it went no further. For a while he was known as the guy who invented a square piston engine.

In 1972 Norman joined Bruce Mclaren Motor Racing. During his 3 years with Mclaren he learned much about race engineering while building chassis, mechanicing on cars, pit crewing and coming up with solutions, earning him the nickname Stormin Normin. Norman ran the sister car but was part of the team that won the Indianapolis 500 in 1974 with Johnny Rutherford. That year, Mclaren also won the Formula One world Championship with Emerson Fitipaldi and the CAN AM series.

In the years that followed Norman did the Le Mans 24 hour race 3 times, the last 2 as race planner/manager.

In 1976 Norman began gathering ideas for his first bike HOSSACK 1. A model made from a coat hanger nailed to a piece of wood started the whole thing.