I can’t actually remember it but my mum tells me that I used to be able to recite the main points on the TT course when I was just five years old because I’d heard my dad and all his pals talking about it so much. When I used to sit on the arm rests of the sofa with Garry as kids playing at racers apparently I’d do a running commentary, ‘And Jimmie Guthrie’s coming round Quarterbridge and heading on out to Braddan’, or, ‘He’s coming down the Creg and heading for home.’ Mum says my dad used to sit gobsmacked listening to me and wondering where the hell I’d got it all from!
After I’d progressed from sofa racing and actually got onto the TT course for real I wasn’t one of those guys who did 300 laps in a van before practice. In fact, I only ever did about 12 complete laps on my own before lining up for the first practice session. Ten times TT winner and 15 times world champion, Giacomo Agostini, went to stay on the Isle of Man for two weeks before he first raced there and spent six hours every day going round and round the track to learn it. I never had to do that.
The first lap I ever did on a bike was in 1983 after watching Joey and Norman Brown in that Classic race. Jim Oliver had a little Yamaha RD250 with him and he let me do one lap on it after the race before we all went out for some beers that night. It was a good time to go round the track because most people had already been there for two weeks and had had their fill of laps so it was pretty quiet. I made sure I took a stopwatch in my pocket and started it off at Quarterbridge then went for it as fast as I could, especially over the mountain section where there’s no speed limit, another unique feature of the Isle of Man. Boy, I was really going over there, absolutely flat-out all the way on that little LC. I rode back round to Quarterbridge and stopped my watch; it read 32 minutes, which equated to a lap average of 78mph. I know that precisely because I still have a five-year diary from that period and I entered my time in it! That was going some for open roads so I was quite chuffed with myself – after all, some people still can’t do that in a bloody race!
These days, there are so many videos of on-board camera laps of the TT available to buy that a new rider could learn the course reasonably well before ever setting foot on the Isle of Man but they didn’t exist when I started out. I actually made one of those videos in 1990 called ‘TT Flyer’ and managed to clock the first ever 120mph lap with a camera on board. It caused quite a sensation at the time. I even wrote a book on the course itself a few years back explaining the right way to take every corner – that’s how well I know the place!
Speaking of on-board camera footage, I remember getting passed by Joey Dunlop a few times in my first practice week at the Manx, as he was recording footage for the ‘V-Four Victory’ video and had a huge big camera strapped to the tank. These days the cameras are so small you don’t even know they’re there but in 1983, it was like having Steven bloody Spielberg sitting on the tank with a full camera crew in tow! Anyway, Joey passed me so many times that I thought there was three of the little buggers – I didn’t realize that he was continually stopping to adjust the camera!
I broke down at Lambfell just before the Cronk-y-Voddy straight on my first ever practice lap – the bike just went flat and died on me. But I had come prepared and pulled out a little girlie purse that was riveted to the inside of the fairing and contained fresh spark plugs and a plug spanner! Sure enough, one of the plugs on the bike was fouled up so I changed it, bump-started the bike and was off on my way again. That’s the sort of DIY job which keeps you going on the Island and it was the norm back then as it probably still is now for riders who aren’t in big teams.
But I only got as far as Ballaugh Bridge on the same lap then the bloody thing died on me again. This time the big end was gone and it definitely wasn’t going any farther so my session was over. But it wasn’t all bad, as that’s when I first met the famous Gwen from Ballaugh. She’s spent years looking after riders who break down anywhere near the renowned humpback bridge and she always had pots of tea, cakes, biscuits and toast at the ready. You’ve got to remember that practice starts at 5am on the Island so I was really ready for a breakfast! So I ended my first practice session in the lap of luxury eating breakfast and drinking tea in Gwen’s house which was a lot better than what I’d have got back in our van. Ever since then, I always waved or wiggled my foot at Gwen just to say hello during a race, no matter how hard I was riding. I never knew when I might need her hospitality again.
The rest of practice week went okay and I eventually hit upon a pretty good way of learning the course better. Instead of trying to follow the newest young hotshot who may have been quick but reckless, I decided to tag on behind the older boys riding classic bikes. I figured that they had all probably ridden the course for years and would know their way around intimately, even if they weren’t going that fast in a straight line. It proved to be a good idea as their lines were spot-on so I really learned a lot by doing that. I remember I had to roll off the throttle on the straights so as not to pass them then I’d try to follow them through the twisty bits. But they usually lost me so I’d have to hang around until another rider came along and try to follow him for as long as I could.
The buzz of riding the Mountain course was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped for. Racing flat-out on real roads without worrying about tractors, coppers or anything coming the other way is an amazing thrill and that’s what attracts riders to the TT year after year despite the dangers. My favourite sections were from Ballacraine to Ballaugh and then from Sulby Bridge to Ramsay. I never enjoyed the mountain section as it’s just so bleak up there. I think I was put off from the start when I broke down there (again) later on in my first practice week and had to wait for hours for the van to pick me up. Not a good place to be stranded.
I was more like Joey Dunlop in that I loved to be in among the trees, hedges and stone walls. It was fantastic racing between them at such high speeds and that’s where I always made up time on the other guys who maybe backed off a little through those parts. Those sections took a lot more learning as well, which is more pleasurable in the end because it’s more of a challenge and very rewarding when you get it right.
The Newcomers race was on the Tuesday and it was the first race of the week as well as being the first of my Island career. I was 21 years old. Everyone thought Ian Newton was going to win because he had been quickest all through practice week but he was pushing himself too hard and he ripped the bales off a stone wall at the Black Dub on one lap when he clouted them with his bike. He was riding out of his skin and luckily, for the sake of his life, his bike broke down and that was that.
The race became a four-way scrap between me, Robert Dunlop (Joey’s younger brother), Ian Lougher and Gene McDonnell. Gene would later die in horrific circumstances when he hit a horse on the course at full speed in 1986. The horse had panicked and jumped on to the track when a paramedic helicopter had landed in a field to pick up Brian Reid who had crashed at Ballaugh and broke his collarbone. Both Gene and the horse died instantly. It was a harsh reminder of the bizarre hazards of the TT.
Race-wise, I had my fair share of problems despite all the preparation Wullie and I had done on the bike. After just five miles my back brake faded to practically nothing, then the wadding in my exhaust blew out making the bike go flat and as if that wasn’t enough, the chain started seizing up because it was too hot. The vibration from that in turn split the frame in some parts and on top of that my fairing had worked its way loose and was hanging off by the end of the race!
But despite all my problems I ended up finishing second to Robert Dunlop with Ian Lougher in third place. All three of us went on to have great TT careers and currently have 22 wins between us. As I write this, Robert and Ian are still racing there so they may well rack up some more wins yet.
Second was a brilliant result for me because I hadn’t expected to achieve anything when I went to the Island – I just wanted to ride the course and enjoy myself. As I said before, the bike was hanging in pieces at the end of the