TT week

no worries, not a rush – thanks for your help!!

Kev – pass on that one, I only moved here in 1998 (I was born here in 1977 but moved away when I was still in nappies).

Preston – the Roush Manx Rally has been held already. There may be another one, I’m not sure (there’s always something on).

Tell you what – one of the girls at work is a motorsport fanatic and she’s in charge of recruiting and coordinating the race marshalls. I’ll see what she knows about the next rallies/races. It’s a local bank holiday tomorrow, so I won’t see her till probably Tuesday now.

Mongu.

Wasn’t it the Manx where, back in the 80’s, Gwyndaf Evans left a trail of pink paint from his Sierra Cosworth on the upper storey of a house? I seem to remember tv footage of it. I ended up perched on the bonnet of his car on Scarborough sea front in the early hours of one morning. I stepped out in front of him as ge was driving to service. One blast on his air horn had me jump out of my skin and landing on his bonnet.

Regards,

kev35

hi Mongu – now i’m looking for some info!

Manx rally – i thought that was in late July into early August. This is when i am coming over in an organised group and would be very interested in watching a day/half day racing!

Any help would b v much appreciated

Everyone seemed to like Joey Dunlop. Unfortunately I thought he was a tosser when I met him the only time, but apparently he was like that – mostly a solid bloke but a bit erratic.

We had the Red Arrows today. Flew right over my house in a Concorde formation 🙂

Shaun Harris won yesterdays 1000cc Prod race at an average speed of approx 124mph , thats for three laps of a 37.3 mile course !!! , that takes balls , this is balls out racing , minimal safety barriers – raw racing , I’ve tried twice , once on a Yamaha YZF750SP and once on a genuine Honda RC45 , to see if I could even get near 90mph av speed – NO – I definately don’t have the bottle . If you can get out there for a try I would highly recommend it .
Watch out for Jim Moodie !! , he may be getting on in years but he’s still hungry , still not the same though without “Yer Maun” Joey Dunlop – a legend sadly missed.

I read about David Jefferies death in the weekend papers. I had only just read the article about him in June’s Bike magazine.
Barry Sheene made himself very unpopular over his views on the TT but I’ve got to say I’m with him on this subject. I just don’t think it’s worth it, but if you want to do it, well that’s your problem.

I have an onboard video taken from Jefferies bike a couple of years ago , awesome stuff . Mad Sunday is a free for all , I couldn’t get round the Island in DOUBLE the times Jim Moodie was setting .

Basically the event is well supported by the locals. There are deaths every year, just something you have to get used to. There’s characters to – I remember about 2 years before his death I met Joey Dunlop in a local pub (the Manx Arms). He was a regular there and was usually dead drunk, then would be miraculously sober and really focused the next day.

But the motorbikes can make traffic really bad. The main roads are closed all afternoon for practices, so getting back from work is a bit of a hog. Other than that, these mad bikers like to overtake you on narrow roads at 100mph – you need to drive carefully.

But what the hell, it’s all good fun – you’d think an influx of 30 or 40,000 bikers would cause problems, but they are generally very good natured. We get a lot of Germans – the road signs become bilingual and the pubs fly signs saying “Bier Hier”. There’s loads of viewing areas, as you’d expect from a circuit on public roads. If you like motorsports, I’d recommend paying the next TT a visit!

see

www.iomtt.com
www.dukevide.com

Oh – we’re not a one trick island either. There are 2 more motorcycle races, the IOM Grand Prix and the Southern 100. There is also the Manx Rally, which finished 2 or 3 weeks ago. A lot of the teams practice on an old airstrip at Jurby, which is still operational – there is an annual airshow. There’s the usual firework show and we usally get the Red Arrows popping over as well.

Tragedy has struck already with the sad death of David Jeffries who was killed last Thursday during practice.

Regards, Dazza.