Days of Future Past
Days of Future Past
RACE WATCH
Racing at the Isle of man
MICK DUCKWORTH
CRASHES IN PRACTICE AND OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOR BY
visiting road riders very nearly finished the Isle of Man
Tourist Trophy for good.
That was in 1911, the first year the TT road races were run over the legendary 37.73-mile Mountain Course on Man, a tiny island in the Irish Sea. And do you know what? Things have scarcely changed.
Like everything on the isle of Man, a green and rocky refuge unaffected by much of the modern world, the Tourist
Trophy is steeped in tradition.
Predictions of the controver-
sial event’s demise have be-
come almost as much part of
custom as the hallowed
public-roads circuit itself. If y°u while away the four-hour ferry crossing from England
with a London-based news-
paper, the press’s urbane dis-
missal of the TT as a blood-
letting ritual attended by fear-
less morons could prompt you to jump on the next ship
back to England and sanity.
But look, listen, and above all, ride the roads at this amazing multi-faceted motorcycling festival and you begin to grasp the complexity of the whole TT issue.
Far more than just a roadrace meet, the late-May/earlyJune TT event lured 320 racers and more than 12,000 road riders this year. Ask TT addicts, whether competitors or spectators, to explain the attraction of the isle of Man in a few words and they’ll tell you: It’s just so damned friendly. The Manx people, numbering about 70,000, are unbelievably hospitable. The place itself is stunningly beautiful, at least when the unpredictable weather is fair.
But its 500 miles of rolling, twisting roads can be cruel and unforgiving. During last year’s TT, 10 motorcyclists were killed on them. And they weren’t racers, so they don’t figure in the TT’s official total 162 fatalities that stood at the start of this year’s practice.
What’s special about the Mountain Course circuit is that it is created by closing public highways. So anyone seeking to experience the thrill of rushing into its seemingly endless turns can do just that. Just like the racers, you can work at learning how to make ever-smoother progress along the swooping and switching ribbon of rippled tarmac. You dash through villages, past telephone poles, under shading trees, over railroad tracks and across bare highlands. Some days, you’ll even ride in the clouds.
The absence of a blanket speed limit means that riders sweep through the easier curves at 130 mph-and more, if you believe their bar-stool yarns. Indeed, for some, the TT doubles as a beer fest, making those accident figures easier to grasp.
TT fortnight is a hellish time for Manx police and medical workers. Yet these are the very people who seem to put as much as anyone into making the whole thing happen. It’s generally believed that that tolerance stems from the Island’s dependence on the TT, as a last hope of mass tourism, to survive. But looking at the cost to Manx taxpayers of running races, paying police overtime costs and providing free medical care, including expensive surgical operations, the TT doesn’t seem such a bottomless goldmine. Granted, some useful revenue must come from speeding fines collected by local police, who do their best to enforce town and village limits on roads forming the circuit. Even so, the Isle of Man Constabulary and its force of just over 200 officers is a largely lenient and good-natured presence at the TT.
That is possible because, widespread speeding and some recklessness aside, the 40,000-odd TT visitors mostly behave like lambs once off their machines. On a typical TT evening, thousands of bikes of every sort imaginable line the old-world seafront in Douglas, the Island’s main town. The pubs are packed with fun-seekers, yet brawling and other violence is almost unheard of among the motorcycle crowd. Police spokesman Inspector Dudley Butt, whose own machine is a ’78 Triumph Bonneville, says the force sees the main threat to public order as riders who play to the nighttime crowds with wheelies, burn-outs and donuts.
The largest congregations gather to view this craziness at Bushy’s, a seafront pub where full-volume rock music accompanies the swallowing of fine beers brewed locally by Martin Brunnschweiler, a TT fan who came from Germany some years ago. He set up Bushy’s and never looked back.
It’s this ambience of relaxed freedom that island-goers thrive on. “Safe” is not a word much heard in conjunction with “TT.” But that’s how 29-year-old Sharon, from Lancaster in Northern England, chose to explain why she and her friend Suzanne were prepared to hitch-hike, helmets in hand, around the 30-by-12 mile island to catch the myriad ancillary TT events.
“We wouldn’t dream of doing this anywhere else, but girls can come to the TT on their own without any hassle,” she said. The two stayed at one of several out-of-town campgrounds, where high spirits and respect for others are pretty nicely balanced.
Douglas has a “tent village,” with army-style accommodations provided by a tourist department embarrassed by the Island’s lack of beds.
“It gets drafty, and there are no showers here,” said tent-dweller and Yamaha FJ1200 rider Georg, from Germany. And since it’s located right beside the TT course, the village is noisy by night. “Everyone seems to have a special exhaust,” Georg commented stoically.
By contrast, Burt Richmond of Lotus Tours billeted his seven American clients at one of the smarter hotels, overlooking scenic palm-lined Ramsey Bay, 16 miles from Douglas. How did Richmond’s group, all firsttimers, judge the TT?
“Awesome,” said Joe Barker of Salt Lake City, an ISDT medalist in ’73 and ’74 on Pentons and owner of a dozen Ducatis. He asked in wonder, “How the hell do those guys find their lines and braking markers for all the blind turns?”
Similarly impressed were Mike Faull of Pomona, fellow Californian Skip Kawell, fresh from driving a segment of the Baja 500 in a VW buggy, vintage bike collector Sam Korologous, and Chicagoans Val and Linda Wheeler. Struck by the Isle of Man’s many attractions, not all bikerelated, they found the roads safe enough to explore at their own various paces, mainly on their rented Honda VFR750s.
Predictably, most TT visitors favored hardware suited to speedy riding. Honda CBRs, Kawasaki ZXs, Suzuki GSX-Rs and Yamaha YZFs are everywhere, and Ducatis are surprisingly numerous. The new Triumphs also become more numerous each year. Though a minority taste in these parts, Harley-Davidson has a higher profile than ever. BMWs are fairly common, and owners of classic British BSAs, Nortons, Sunbeams and such make a point of riding the course.
Weather on the island can be problematic, and so can laptimes. A week of Tourist Trophy racing in steadily
improving weather left the ultimate lap record of 123.61 miles per hour, set by Carl Fogarty on a Yamaha YZF750 in 1993, intact. But the second-fastest-ever rider, Scottish-born Isle of Man resident Steve Hislop, showed his mastery with two start-tofinish wins in the major six-lap 226mile events, the Formula 1 race and the Senior TT, on a Castrol Team> Honda RC45. Riding with bruising on a leg he smacked against a roadside wall in practice, his best lap was 122.50 miles per hour. And that was from a standing start. Hislop’s FI victory came in a re-run, a day after the race was started, then stopped in chaos after riders rode into heavy rain on slick tires. In the usual Manx way, fine weather resumed when the first race was abandoned.
Rivaling Hislop for TT idolatry was Joey Dunlop, called “Yer Maun” (your man) by his Irish compatriots, who clinched unrivalled 16th and 17th TT wins on Honda two-strokes in the 125cc and 250cc races.
Hislop, 32, had said he would quit the TT after a sensational win on a Norton Rotary in the 1992 Senior. He declared that Superbikes had become too powerful for the blind and bumpy Mountain Course.
“I still stand by that,” said Hislop in the paddock this year, admitting he came back to win cash for his current World Superbike bid.
Two more Team Honda RC45s, from the only thing remotely resembling a major factory team at the TT, were ridden by Irish aces Phil McCallan and Joey Dunlop to finish behind Hislop in the Senior finale. The result was a relief for Castrol Team Honda. Attention was focused on the new Honda’s TT capability, and hair-raising frontend handling faults, ironed out in practice, had fuelled rumors that the new bike was disappointing.
Everyone had hoped to see Honda challenged by New Zealand’s homegrown Britten, fresh from its popular Daytona Twins success. But constructor John Britten, whose machines made a promising Isle of Man showing last year, had a nightmarish two weeks at the TT.
Mark Farmer, a top British national rider, agreed to ride one of the three brand new ICI Autocolor-sponsored lOOOcc Britten V-Twins shipped to the island. Farmer crashed and was killed during practice. His death sent a shudder through the paddock, but the Britten team, and others, decided that to persevere would be the most fitting tribute to their fallen friend.
Britten’s nightmare continued when Kiwi star Rob Holden quit the Britten camp, complaining that machine teething troubles had prevented him from getting sufficient practice. Brit> ten wanted to replace Holden with 26-year-old New Zealander Jason McEwan, but despite averaging 110 mph on a Yamaha in the Supersport 600 race, the TT newcomer hadn’t completed enough qualifying laps on the Twin. That left a sole Britten rider, British TT expert Nick Jefferies, and he suffered a misfire in the FI, and oily havoc from a loosened screw in the Senior TT. historic TT machines, Dahne fell from his Honda RC30 in the Senior. On a happier note, Honda RC30 rider Sandra Burnett established herself as the fastest woman on the Isle of Man, with a lap at over 109 miles per hour.
Britten was emotionally shattered by attending Farmer’s funeral. And he was upset over the coroner’s inquest verdict blaming Farmer’s death on engine seizure. But the brilliant New Zealander vowed to return to the TT.
A second competitor, Scotsman Robert Mitchell, also died a few days after a practice crash, and Joey Dunlop’s younger brother, Robert, was helicoptered to a hospital after suffering a broken leg and arm in a horrifying crash in the Formula 1 race. Television pictures of the incident show the rear Marvic wheel of his Medd Racing Honda RC45 apparently disintegrating. The tire, rim and most of the spokes just tore away. The Medd team, which also found a crack in another Marvic cast-alloy wheel after it was used in the FI race by Dunlop’s team-mate Michael Rutter, pulled out of the meeting.
Another rider hospitalized with broken limbs was German 1970s TT hero Helmut Dahne. After a magnificent 94-mile-per-hour lap on his racing BMW R75 Twin in the parade for >
American riders made a good impression. Californian TT regular Wade Boyd, sporting purple-died hair for the occasion, finished in the FI, Supersport 400 and Supersport 600 solo events. He crashed in the Senior TT, but got to his feet and walked into the nearest pub. Just for fun he passengered in sidecar races, rode motocross on Douglas beach, and drove in a local stock car race.
Two Californians at their second TT, Craig McLean of Marin County and Berkeley’s Thomas Montano, vied with each other for mid-field placings. McLean’s best was 24th on a Honda CBR600 in the Formula 1, with similarly mounted Montano right behind him. In the Supersport 600, Montano finished one place ahead of McLean, taking 23rd.
Twenty-seven-year-old Boston, Massachusetts, litigation engineer Kevin McCrea also added sidecar passengering to his solo program. But he was detuned by having some of this year’s worst incidents happen right in front of his Honda.
More forthright about the dark shadow lingering over the TT than many Britons care to be, McCrea nevertheless came up positive.
“Motorcycle racers are denial experts,” he said. “We always think it is going to happen to someone else, and not to us. But anyone who knows about history must realize the TT is the ultimate thing in motorcyclingyou gotta be here.” □
