About Helmut Krackowizer, well-known as "Mister Rudge"

"The most constantly race you ride at full throttle... " meant "racing-professor" Dr. Dipl.-Kfm. Helmut Krackowizer (* 1922, † 2001) named "Mister Rudge" after his favorite brand of motorcycle"Rudge".

My father, the motorcycle-professor

Until his last days he was riding in the saddle of his beloved Rudge, Velocette, Sunbeam racing motorcycles or even on a motorcycle from another brand. The main thing, old and real! With an expert's eye he saw at a glance whether and what was genuine - original - or not on a machine. Not least because he grew up with these motorcycles and was already working in a motorcycle workshop as a teenager in the summer months.

If he saw an older racing motorcycle, one could almost be sure that he knew the history of that brand, sometimes even of that specific motorcycle, who had ridden it and what successes had been achieved with it.

My father, the collector

My father was at home on racetracks, on motorcycles, in vintage car museums and with ex-motorcycle racers. Around 1960 he began collecting everything that had to do with motorcycle history, motorcycle technology or motorcycle racers: from the beginning around 1890 to the 1960s.

In his "motorcycle literature and image archive" you will find old motorcycle magazines as well as contemporary images, books and correspondence with racing drivers and other personalities such as Alfred Neubauer, the legendary Mercedes-Benz racing manager.

This "legacy" rests in an archive that I initially took care of after his death and was then incorporated into a private collection of several historical motorsport archives.

My father and his friends

My father's friends were important throughout his life. And he had a lot of them everywhere: in Switzerland, in France, in the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria, but also and maybe especially in England. A trip to England took him to his friends and mostly to the Isle of Man. His records show that he visited this island almost every year during the "Tourist Trophy" season. Visits to friends along his itinerary were a matter of course. He had already met many of his friends and acquaintances while he was an active racing driver, from 1946 to 1955.