Someone pointed me to this superb 6:13 summary video of this year's motorcycle races on the Isle of Man. The speedo readout over 170mph in some corners takes some thinking about but I think the cutest bit is at 0:48 when John McGuinness, tucked in but bouncing out of the seat of his bike at 170+mph, turns his head sideways so he can look up at the helicopter videoing him as he outruns it. The quality is just about good enough to run at full screen. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph0SjLC_lqk]Greatest show on earth[/ame]
I'm squirming in my chair after watching that, my adrenaline level is so high... just from watching a video. Makes me want to get in the car and head to the mountains NOW. Crazy.
The Guy I used to get my Triumph parts from, Jerry Kosinski raced the Isle of Mann back in the '60's on Triumphs,B.S.A.'s and Norton's. His son 'Lil John Kozinski is a G.P. Racer who used to ride for Kenny Robert's race team.
I went to the TT several times in the 90s and it is a fairly memorable place. High up my list, and still capable of producing a small nightmare, is holding my heavy-but-grunty Honda ST1100 against the throttle stop all the way up the 'mountain mile' to reach something like 140 on the speedo (yeah, probably only just over 100....) and, as I went for the brakes for Mountain Box, being passed simultaneously on both sides by two sports bikes doing easily 30-40mph more than me. The 'shock wobble' I went into took me right onto the edge of the road and it's luck, not skill, that sees me here today.....
Holy crap those guys are crazy! I could never go that fast on a bike ever. I need more around me than a layer of leather, like a car.
All it would take is one animal or one idiot to be on the road. 170 mph + 1 deer or person = major pain for all.
One year that I went to the Isle of Man races, the Minister (=Secretary of State*) of Tourism reversed out of his drive onto the race track during one of the practice sessions. He was immediately noticed by a marshall who called the police and he got a ticket for it. Driving, walking or just standing on the race track during the races or practices, except for competitors, is a crime. I have watched the races leaning against a stone wall, with the racing line on the road just the other side of the wall. I think I could just about have reached my arm over the wall and had my hand hit by a bike - though actually I didn't try that.... Look at 1:05 in that latest video - there are several places on the course where the limit of how near the rider can get to the apex of a bend is a stone wall. Riders have finished TT races with scratches in their helmets where they went just a little too far. Being 2ft away is sloppy. *The Isle of Man is technically a small country (population 80,000, area 1/5th that of Rhode Island, ...) with its own laws and government. So it does have Ministers, and this Minister was the one in charge of running the TT races, so his claim that he 'forgot' the practice sessions had started didn't go down too well.
Isle of Man TT & Manx rally, 2 of the best events out there. Back in the olden days.... Check out 1:38 in the vid. :eek6: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwvIRuCLbyg]Ari Vatanen - Manx Rally 1983 - YouTube[/ame]
Yeah, I believe when a professional rally navigator says "Dear God...." out loud, that officially counts as a 'moment'.
You got that right. Terry Harryman was pretty cool considering his life was inches from gone. In Car Manx was a great video, wish that old footage was in HD.