Martin Wimmer was a four-time German champion—three times in the 250cc class (1981, 1984, 1985) and once in the 350cc class (1981)—before advancing to the Motorcycle World Championship. Today, October 11, 2023, he is celebrating his 66th birthday. He still remembers the early days of his career very clearly.
It was 45 years ago that Martin Wimmer made history. In 1978, the Bavarian became the first Yamaha Cup winner in Germany on an XS 400 cc. The 21-year-old student from Munich won five of eight races. He had learned about the Cup from the newspaper “MOTORRAD.” He felt that circuit racing was just right for him because it allowed him to pass opponents. “The Cup was a great and affordable opportunity to race,” Wimmer recalls, explaining: “I earned the 5,400 DM I needed to buy the motorcycle by selling pretzels for two weeks at the Hacker tent during Oktoberfest, making 2,500 DM, and in December I worked for another month at a scrap dealer. But I’d already figured I’d be up there at the front of the pack in the Cup. In the eight races, there was 300 DM for each race win and 3,000 DM for the title. I broke in the Yamaha at the Munich-East highway interchange. There was a cloverleaf interchange there, and I drove around it clockwise for two and a half hours. By the end, there was no tread left on the right side of the tire. But it was good training.”
At the season’s climax, Wimmer’s motorcycle was completely dismantled by the technical commission. The Cup race took place as part of the German Grand Prix on the legendary Nordschleife. In the first qualifying session, he posted a lap time of 10 minutes and 15 seconds, making him 30 seconds faster than the runner-up. There was a reason for that: “During summer break, two weeks before the race, I went to the Eifel and trained there, doing ten laps every day. The officials there thought my engine had been tuned. But I’d only made a few permitted adjustments to the suspension. When leaning into a turn, the exhaust manifold would often scrape the ground. So I swapped the right exhaust manifold with the left one, which made a difference of a few millimeters.”
In 1980, Wimmer competed in his first World Championship race and immediately earned his first points with a ninth-place finish. In the 1980s, he was among Germany’s top 250cc Grand Prix riders. Wimmer secured a total of three Grand Prix victories. His most successful year was 1985, when he won the German Grand Prix and finished second twice. In the World Championship standings, Wimmer finished fourth in both 1982 and 1985.
There are many stories surrounding the German’s subsequent career. Together with his wife and Ralf Waldmann, he bought the motorcycle manufacturer MZ, but later had to file for bankruptcy. Wimmer never gave up; instead, he kept coming up with new ideas. He’s a tinker. He’s currently developing an emissions-free hydrogen 2-stroke engine. “I actually developed a mini-block combined heat and power plant over ten years ago using my prototype MZ engine,” says the winner of the 1987 Suzuka 8-Hour Race. At 66, he’s far from done.
