Butterflies, Butterflies, Frank

The next round of the 2016 DTRA race series is the Greenfield TT, next weekend. TT racing is dirt track's nod to going right and leaving the ground. To the best of my knowledge, TT races only ever have one jump per lap. They're contested by flat track bikes, usually with slightly more compliant suspension and front brakes. There have been TT races in the UK, when the national series was organised by Short Track UK, but this is the first DTRA TT. It's also the first all dirt TT. Previous races have had concrete sections when the course turned onto the infield of King's Lynn speedway track, with a dirt jump.

As a very amateur racer, I'm not a massive fan of the TT format as I've never been much of a jumper, but there was a small scale practice at the Greenfield track earlier in the year, and running a few laps over the jump gave me more confidence for the upcoming race. I think the racing is going to be wild and action-packed, especially as this year, most classes are running without a front brake.

It's free to spectate, and it's a two-day meeting at:
Greenfield Farm
Greenfield
Alford
LN13 0EB

Anthony Brown, big cheese of the DTRA, sent a link to this clip through to get us excited about TT racing and it is wonderful. Evel Knievel is the guest pundit and while he does get some good info over, when asked about TT racing, he compares Ascot TT with the Isle of Man TT. Perhaps he'd only heard of the Isle of Man TT, not actually seen it. I don't have to tell you the two couldn't be more different.

This 100-lapper is dominated by Rick Hocking. He must have been the big favourite, because he was interviewed before the race, with the clips inserted into the coverage. I saw Hocking race at Vegas in 2010, also on a Yamaha 500, like he using in this race, then I was in the hotel hot tub with him (it was a big outdoor hot tub, not that awkward). I wish I'd seen this clip before that impromptu meeting. And it's too late to ask him about it now as, sadly, he took his own life a year later, in early 2011.

Another fact, the late Paul Bostrom (incorrectly captioned Bostrum in this Wide World Of Sports footage) is running third for part of the race. He was the uncle of former superbike racers Ben and and Eric Bostrom. G

Anstey and RC213V-S at the TT

I haven't written about road racing stuff on the blog for a while, but this news has got me excited.

Ten-time TT winner Bruce Anstey is to race the exclusive production bike version of Honda's MotoGP bike at this year's Isle of Man races. This is a reverse engineered way of racing a MotoGP bike on the roads.

Honda produced a limited run of the RCV, with lights and mirrors and a number of other differences (like alloy engine cases rather than the magnesium of Marquez's) and sold them for £137,000 (€188,000), even though it made only 160bhp in road trim. HRC sell a £10,000 race kit to boost power to a claimed 200-plus bhp (which is what bike like the BMW S1000RR are making in Superbike spec). So, as it's now a legitimate production bike, it can race in the Superbike and Senior TTs. Padgetts are the team that helped Ian Hutchinson win five TTs in a week, and Anstey won the Superbike TT last year. It'll be exciting.

Superbike practice starts Monday 30 May. The Superbike race is scheduled for Saturday 4 June. G

Stalion

Nothing beats the eroticism of a simple stand-up wheelie. Here, Jim Odom. BP

Old leather

A load of boxes stored in my parents’ loft recently turned up a nostalgia-overdose. In among the Subbuteo and Scalextric, the graffiti-plastered school books and old rugby boots was this, my first ever leather jacket. I got it when I was about 14 years old. The Triumph obsession was served by a tatty Tiger Cub that, just as I was old enough to ride it on the road with L-plates (17), the law changed and pushed it out of reach. The Isle of Man patch was from my first ever TT, with my mate Smiffy (and his parents) when we were 15. That white ‘LP’? Teen love in Humbrol enamel. The lining’s long gone and it smells like a dying Labrador, but it’s a keeper. Can anyone ever chuck out their old leathers? It’s a skin thing. MP

What would Jeff do?

A few weeks ago, the editor of Performance Bikes, a magazine I've contributed to for well over a decade, rang up and said, 'We are putting on a free track day with Dunlop and Rockingham racetrack. Why don't you come on the Black Arrow.' Great idea.

Since then, though, I've damaged my left rotator cuff (painful muscle and tendon shoulder injury), highsiding on a wet track at the last DTRA race. I've crashed another two times since then... And I'm busy. So busy. I always go to bed knowing I've only done half as much as I should have that day.

Aching, busy, the black Arrow buried behind two other bikes, excuses, excuses...
But what would Jeff do? I'm talking about Jeff Wright (of FTWCo and Church of Choppers). He has two bars, his T-shirt business, four three kids... Jeff would go to the track day.

So I did. And it was great. The Black Arrow behaved. The sidestand bracket grounds out, but I knew the bike was low. I need to go up a tooth on the front sprocket and take the gauze out of the bellmouths too, but other than that, it felt good. I'm now looking forward to riding it on Montlhery's banking at the Cafe Racer Festival, outside Paris in two weeks.

And, because he's a columnist for PB, John McGuinness turned up, cool as you like, chatted and did a few laps in his World Endurance and TT leathers.

Thanks Jeff. G

The Fast Of The Forest: Showing at the TT

The Fast of the Forest
01/06/2014 – 07/06/2014
11am –Manx Museum –Free.
Follow Finnish newcomer Juha Kallio as he fulfills his dream of racing in the 2013 Isle of Man TT. Film Premiere and meet the producer: 11am Mad Sunday
Showing by kind permission of Antti Jääskeläinen
Film duration: 70 min.
Admission Free. - See more at: Manx National Heritage

Dainese Legends Magazine

I wrote an interview with 2-metre tall TT star, comeback king and all-round decent Manxman, Conor Cummins, for Dainese's very stylish online magazine, Legends. See it here, for free.
Conor will be making his flat track debut in the final Short Track UK round of the year, at Rye House next Sunday. Speedway star Eddie Kennett and TT winner Steve Plater will also be competing.
£10 on the day, kids are free, racing from 11.30.  G

Steve Plater at King's Lynn

Steve Plater (#22, above, next to his mate Boastie) has won the 2009 Senior TT, the Macau GP, NW200, a World Endurance round and a bunch of other stuff. Today he was racing in the Short Track UK championship for fun. G

Big Mac - updated!

Brilliant on-bike colour footage of Bob McIntyre riding a Norton Manx at Oulton Park in the very late Fifties, maybe 1960-'61 (the Cheshire track where he'd sustain fatal injuries in 1962). You can only imagine the size of the camera bolted to the bike. I've had this for 15 years or more on VHS but went looking for it on DVD. I'm glad to say you can get it from Duke, and it's well worth it, there's more of this lap, plus you get a full lap behind the flyscreen, and there's loads more stuff about all types of bikesport. I think it was one of those films made to show before the main feature in cinemas to stop the nation's youth from slipping into a dirty rocker lifestyle.

It's an apt time to mention that McIntyre was the first rider to put in a 100+mph lap of the TT, in the 1957 Senior on a four-cylinder Gilera 500. To mark the TT's golden jubilee, that year's Senior was run over eight laps (instead of six). That's over 300 miles and more than three hours' racing. On the Mountain Course. On a 170mph bike with drum brakes. Bloody hell. MP
PS: Don't know where the video went earlier. It's here now and the rest of the post should now make sense.

The TT starts here

After a week of practice, the Isle of Man TT races start today, with the Superbikes out first, scheduled for 11am BST (I think that's 3am in California, 8pm in Sydney - but I could be wrong). You can listen live on TT Radio and get all the stats, live lap times etc through the official TT Live site. You'll have to sign up with your email address (maybe not for just the radio), but it's free. Gives me goosebumps every time I hear those historic course points being called out, as the bikes scream past, commentary swapping to the key places around the course. If you can't be there, listen in, it's great. MP

Joy Ride starring Mark Miller

Peter G sent us a link to this conceptual HBO-style concept video, that's an showcase for what Nikon cameras can. The short film has some great riding footage of our mate, the Californian real road racer Mark Miller. I've met Mark a bunch of times at the Isle of Man and Macau and he's always great to spend time with. Fast too. He wrote one of the most memorable things I've ever read about the TT, after he crashed at Quarterbridge. Read it here.

Thanks for the link Peter. G

Yamaha R1 Dirt Tracker

Thanks to everyone who told us about this video. This is Wade Boyd. I interviewed him at the Isle of Man TT in 2007. He had purple hair. A fast bike racing California hippie, he's decided to try race an R1 on dirt. Needless to say it's fast in a straight line, but the 17s and whatever kind of tyres he is using (cut slicks?) are really holding him back in this video. Be interested to see if he develops it.
Our friend Krumpledick said
'I thought of you when I last saw Wade at Sacramento. He's raced sidecars, Isle of Man, and kicked ass a couple of years back on a 21" front wheeled Kawasaki at the Stockton Mile. A character that might fit in with your tilt at Sideburn.' G
Photo via Kneeslider

Goodwood Festival of Speed

More day job related fun...

Long shadow... Left home at 5am for the ride to the Goodwood Festival of Speed because...

I'd been promised a ride on Johnny Rea's full-on 2011 Castrol Honda Superbike. On cold slicks, not detuned, so 220bhp. It was a pussycat, the speed I rode it. What a cool experience. Shame about the crap phone pics.
Cam Donald, Sam Lowes, Tom Sykes, Craig Martin.
I parked it up against the post, then went for a cup of tea. The bike just pulling up is one of those ridiculous turbine bikes with the helicopter engine. The rider crashed it, spectacularly, in the afternoon run. It's ok, now one was watching. Er...Keith Amor TT bike and 1998 Aaron Slight WSB RC45.
Ron Haslam Honda RS1123 F1 bike
1990 (I think) Lawson YZR500 just about to be lent against a post in the ground.

Sir Alan Cathcart, the world's most widely read motorcycle journalist, said lots of nice things about Sideburn. He's been reading it since issue 1 and promised a bunch of interesting bikes for future issues. Behind him is bike designer John Keogh and Maximum Bob Steffano - El Crusher!
Freddie Sheene, Barry's son, on the Turbo Suzuki Icon. Someone has polished the tyres with silicone spray before he got on it. Not ideal.
The Irving Vincent, with Craig McMartin on board, came over from Australia. Absolutely stunning.
Waiting for the return back down the hill.Gorgeous Ringhini tiddler next to an S1000RR.
Keith Amor was riding. We talked about his amazing TT crash escape.
Two of the hundreds of amazing cars. The thing with the ironing board wing is a 1966 Chaparral Chevrolet. Miller Time is a 1983 Buick Regal NASCAR. I'd love a road version (in matt grey). That's Sideburn collaborator Fly the photographer on the right, shooting for his new project Accler8.com.

Goodwood is too much. There's just so much going on, so much to see that, especially when I'm trying to work, I get home and realise I didn't see half of it. I'll try go next year and not work.

The pits is great place to meet up with people. This is Robert Steffano (of Acme Rocket Bikes and now the new owner of Kosman Specialties), Roland Sands and me. GI

IOM TT x DSM

Managed to meet up with the Des Moines crew at Quarter Bridge. Good times. From L-R: GI, Jeff (Church of Choppers/FTWCo), Dustin (Sinners), Billy T (DSM, Iowa), random Manx punk who likes the company of American visitors... Fatty had fallen asleep in his tent.
Below: Jeff chats to the locals. It's great to see guys who've made such a massive effort to see a bike race really enjoying it, but they're annoyed the bars shut early. 'We've had better parties in our friend's yard,' said Billy. G
PS Guy Martin was in a safe 2nd behind McGuinness on lap 5 when his bike broke down. You obviously didn't pray enough.

Isle of Man TT News

A few people who read this blog are going out to the TT this year, so it's worth posting news that one of my favourite riders, the Californian Mark Miller has just been signed up to race the Aprilia RSV4 for UK team Splitlath. Mark won the Zero emissions race on the MotoCsysz last year.
He also wrote this amazing post about crashing while in the top ten of the Senior. G
UPDATE: Mark got in touch with photos of his new leathers. Keep an eye out for him.

Guy Martin in Edinburgh tonight

More info at Red Torpedo

TT BSA ???

Anybody know Who? What? How? on this BSA?
I made the snap at the North Weald sprint in 1999. BP

Guy Martin news

I've been away working at the Le Mans 24 this weekend. I'd just there on Friday when my phone starting ringing with bad news. Then more bad news, then some better news, but all sketchy. Sideburn's friend Guy Martin had crashed at 150mph on the Isle of Man while on lap record pace. 'Race red flagged' 'He's been airlifted' 'Chest injuries' 'Spinal injuries' 'Bike on fire' 'He's talking' 'It's just bruising'.
Some of it true, some not. Guy's done a few guest races in the UK short track, so I also had dirt trackers wondering what was going on. Well, Guy managed to save his own life, holding his Fireblade up on his knee when the front end washed out, just long enough to make it around Ballagarey and slide down the track at 150mph.
A more comprehensive update is at Red Torpedo's blog. GI
Photo: Ashley via Red Torpdeo

Yorkshire Grit

The Isle of Man TT's on at the moment and Yorkshireman Ian Hutchinson has won three TTs in a week, every solo race so far. I found this amazing photo of him today and there's a short interview with him on the blog of our friend's and long-time supporters, Red Torpedo blog.
Now, if he'd just coast to a stop at Glen Vine so Guy Martin could win a TT... GI

Smokin'