James Lawton: Sheene the angelic tearaway of the track

The first time I met Barry Sheene he was occupying a motel room of some dishevelment in Daytona. His legs had recently been pinned back together with elaborate ironwork which meant that for the moment his method of mounting his motorbike, not inappropriately when all things were considered, was to be lifted on rather like a knight going into battle.

He asked me if I cared for a drink. In late afternoon on one of those heavy Florida days, with the fans whirring and the air made of lead, it seemed like a good idea.

He called room service and asked if they could send up the "usual." A few minutes later a waiter appeared with a tray laden with a dozen Margueritas. Down in the bar they had not been easy on the tequila, a fact which dawned on me as Sheene's most engaging grin became increasingly lop-sided.

Sometime before I lapsed into semi-consciousness, however, a measure of the man had been obtained.

In subsequent years it was spasmodically refreshed, but whenever it happened the spirit of that first meeting was invariably rekindled. When I awoke yesterday to the news that he had died, of throat and stomach cancer, it was one of those losses which you cannot calculate until they happen. Barry Sheene was one of those things in the corner of your life which, when you bring them all together, make the whole business of living it worthwhile.

He was an angelic tearaway loved by both women and men, and if ever this reality was encapsulated it was surely in the dilemma of the rich young businessman who lost his beautiful model wife, Stephanie, to Sheene back in the mid-Seventies. "That was tough," Sheene admitted. "He was one of my greatest fans."

Sheene was on crutches outside the Tramp night-club when he first met Stephanie, the adored wife and mother of his two children. His legs were being reconstructed at the time, but his spirit – after two 175 mph crashes – had plainly survived without a nick. The same could not be said for his skin. "I left enough of it on the track to cover a sofa," he said.

When he was asked by a BBC man about what goes through your mind on such an occasion, Sheene shot back: "If you're going fast enough, your arse."

Among other revelations, in Daytona, Sheene told me of the exotic location of his loss of virginity at the age of 14. It was on a snooker table in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields during school lunch hour.

As the tequila slipped down, he talked lightly of his return to the track where 12 months earlier he had come so close to losing his life. "If you enjoy doing something so much, you will put yourself out to an extreme degree to keep on doing it. When I was told my legs were so messed up, and that I would never ride competitively again, I just said, 'bollocks to that'. Don't write me up as a hero... I hate all that crap. Just say I'm somebody who got what he wanted more than anything."

Sheene didn't make much of an impact on the 1976 Daytona 200. But the good old boys in their dungarees and leathers and floral shirts roared to a man when they lifted him on to his bike.

I last spoke to him in the mid-Nineties, long before the cancer kicked in and it is poignant now to recall how happy he sounded. He said he remembered well our first tequila-fuelled collision.

"I was a bit suspicious," he recalled, "because it was at the start of my relationship with Stephanie and I wondered if you were sniffing around for a gossip page piece."

He said he had found absolute contentment on the banks of the Nareng River in Queensland. He had a full life with his family and a good income from Australian television and sponsorships and he still felt very much at home around the sport in which he won two 500cc world championships.

"Even at the peak of racing," he said, "I knew there would have to be something else. It was wonderful operating on the edge, getting those adrenalin rushes, but I always knew it couldn't go on for ever. I looked around at other sportsmen and I realised not a lot of them would have much to hang on to when their careers were over. They were living a fantasy but the trouble with sport is that there is a day when someone comes to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that the fantasy is over.

"It's a case of 'hello, real life' and if you're not ready it can be a hell of a shock. The thing I have to guard against now, especially when I wake Stef and the kids up so that they can see the sun coming up over the river, is feeling smug."

The details of Barry Sheene's extraordinary life, and his last brave and typically unorthodox fight for it, can be found on the obituary page and should not be missed by anybody who, while perhaps untouched by the appeal of motor sport, puts a high value on lives lived with all available spirit and nerve and joy.

Sheene was a gem of a man, a charmer shot through, quite literally, with steel.

Last night I fished out a bottle of his favoured Mexican brew and took a shot in memory of the day I left a great man's motel room without feeling a scrap of pain.