Rennie Scaysbrook | May 18, 2022
Cycle News Lowside
COLUMN
Running Down a Dream
Ask anyone who knows even a sliver of motorcycle-racing lore and they will probably tell you the Isle of Man TT is either the greatest motorsport event on the planet, or an archaic spectacle that should be confined to history.
Indeed, it is a race so far removed from modern occupational health and safety laws it boggles the mind that it even exists today. At 37.73-miles long, the TT Mountain Course has hardly a run-off area to be found aside from the odd slip road, and a lot of sections have hay bales gaffer-taped around telegraph poles, which will do absolutely nothing if you hit them at any great speed. And with those speeds reaching over 200 mph for the WorldSBK-spec Superbikes and only a little slower for Supersport, you really, really must want to do this race.
I’ve wanted to race the Isle of Man TT since I heard my dad raced three of them (1978, 1980 and 1984). My mother always told me if I ever did the TT, she’d break both my legs, but that was when I was a kid and I’m a lot stronger than Mum now.
The want to do the TT has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember, and in two weeks I finally get to scratch that decades-long itch by lining up for the two Supersport TTs on the PRF Racing Suzuki GSX-R600.
Just typing that, and knowing it’s actually true, feels completely surreal. The Isle of Man TT is the road racer’s version of Dakar, the mountaineer’s Mount Everest or the big-wave surfer’s Waimea Bay.
All’s quiet in the early morning on Glencrutchery Road. It will be very different in two weeks time!
It is an incredibly dangerous event—some things happen at the Isle of Man that don’t warrant my writing here, but it is also an island of legends, a place where men and women come to do something incredible, knowing they are among a very select few on this planet who will ever do so. And after two years of Covid-induced hiatus, the longest break from racing since the Second World War, the 2022 TT is going to be absolutely massive.
The different names on the course both inspire and terrify—Bray Hill, Ago’s Leap, Sulby Straight, Ballagarey, Ginger Hall, The Mountain—each name signifies its own section, its own personality of racetrack. The TT Mountain Course is every racetrack in the world mashed together and wrapped around the Snaefell Mountain, a section of track that when you watch the footage from a helicopter camera is about as close to carving fresh powder on a motorcycle as you’re ever likely to get.
When I went to the Island for my initiation laps in 2019 for a 2020 race start that was eventually postponed until 2022, I was floored at just what the motorcycle means to the Manx people. Every shop I visited, every pub I walked into, there were either hundreds of pictures on the wall of TT heroes past and present, or a bike in the window. Or usually both.
The Isle of Man is Valhalla for motorcycle riders. That plucky two-wheeled contraption that brings the world together and moves us from point A to point B has given the otherwise sleepy little island, nestled in the middle of the Irish Sea between the west of Great Britain and the east of Ireland, an identity so ingrained it’s almost genetic.
If you’re into motorcycles (and I think you must be if you’re reading this), it’s hard not to get swept up in the magic of the place. Names like Woods, Agostini, Hailwood, Read, Hislop, Fogarty, Jefferies, McGuinness, Hickman and the immortal Dunlop family are mentioned in the Manx drinking establishments with a level of respect normally reserved for heads of state. These riders are gods in this part of the world.
I will be taking part in my first TTs this year and thus riding in the wheel tracks of giants. At 39 years old, I know I have missed my chance at becoming a TT rider as a profession but perhaps that was never going to happen anyway.
My ride at the TT will therefore be finally me running down that one dream I can always remember having. Growing up, I didn’t want to be a grand prix rider, I wanted to be a TT rider. Our house had photos scattered in frames of Dad as Mike Hailwood’s teammate on the NCR Ducati in 1978 or on his Yamaha TZ500 in 1980, and if my parents wanted to deter me from wanting to do the TT, they should have taken down the photos. Talk about corrupting a young mind.
It’s much the same as when I raced Pikes Peak—you’re responsible for your own safety, because if you crash, there’s no nice, soft air fence to catch you.
I have made every step within my power to ensure my two weeks of TT riding are as safe as possible. I’ve watched so many on-board laps over the last two years that I now nearly fall asleep doing so, and I’ve played the TT PlayStation game ad nauseam, so I know where I’m going, but that’s not even half the battle to discovering the course’s secrets.
The 2021-2022 race season has also seen me in competition more than ever before, and with the exercise regime I’ve been following, I feel I’m match fit to be able to undertake this responsibility safely.
That’s what racing the TT is, a responsibility. You need to be invited to race, and you can’t ride the place like a regular racetrack. It’s much the same as when I raced Pikes Peak—you’re responsible for your own safety, because if you crash, there’s no nice, soft air fence to catch you.
With that, I’d like to end by thanking a few people who have helped make this dream a reality. My boss, Sean Finley, Kit Palmer, and Jesse Ziegler know how important this is to me and have given me incredible support in the process, and this is something I’m truly grateful for.
I would also like to thank Alpinestars, Arai Helmets, 5.11 Tactical, Metzeler Road Race Tires, Suzuki North America, PRF Racing, Hard Knocks Moto Coffee, Roland Sands Design, and Paul Phillips and Bruce Baker at the Isle of Man for everything they have done to get this project off the ground.
Stay tuned to the Cycle News Instagram, Facebook and YouTube over the TT fortnight as I’ll be producing a ton of content so you guys can come along for the ride of my life.
Alright, enough chit-chat. Let’s do this!CN
