Island of Dreams
Island of Dreams
Cycle World and former Editor-at-Large Steve Thompson celebrate a different Isle of Man anniversary
For some motorcycle roadracers, competing in the Isle of Man is an end in itself. I know; I'm one of them. I began roadracing when I was just 18years old, in March of 1967. I finished second in my first race, which left me hooked on racing as hard as any heroin addict is to his drug of choice. And after reading about the Isle of Man in the pages of Cycle World back then, I knew that my ultimate high was to be found only on the fabled TT Mountain Course.
I made it there to compete in the Manx GP in 1970, thanks to the U.S. Air Force, which had amazed me by sending me to England rather than to Vietnam. What happened after I first bump-started my 348cc ShepherdKawasaki away from the start/finish line on Glencrutchery Road for qualifying could fill a book, but the bottom line was that my Island racing ended that year with a crash, a couple of piston seizures and, finally, a destroyed gearbox. The next year was more of the same. I’d intended to race my new Norton Commando Production Racer in the 1972 TT, but problems prevented that plan from materializing. In July, the Air Force sent me back to the States to leave active duty, but I swore I’d return to the Island that had captured me, heart and soul.
Returning took longer than I expected. A lot longer. It wasn’t until 1987 that, with the help of Cycle World, I straddled another racebike on the TT course. I was CW’s Editor-at-Large then, and a year earlier had survived brain surgery for removal of a huge but benign pituitary tumor. That ordeal gave me time and reason to ponder the many life goals I’d never achieved, so I proposed a story to Paul Dean, then Editor-in-Chief,
about racing in the TT with a production-class sportbike. The idea was to combine objectives: I’d race and, in the process, take the readers around the course on the bike, which would itself be tested as we could never do on the street or even on a short circuit. Paul agreed and Suzuki provided a brandnew bone-stock GSX-R750.
So after nearly a year’s extensive planning, I arrived once again on the Island to race.
Things were much different in 1987 than they had been in 1971, the last time I’d been on the TT course as a racer. The course itself was smoother, as you’d expect, given that it comprises public roads. It was therefore faster, as Cycle World's team manager, Terry Shepherd, pointed out while he and I walked the course during my first training session.
Terry knew the TT course as few others did. A former MV and Norton factory rider from the sport’s golden age, Shepherd had agreed to run our team, and he drilled me relentlessly on how best to get quickly around the track on what I came to call “The Shepherd Line.” So just as the track was different, my approach to it was different, too, mentored as I was by Shepherd.
That training and support made all the
difference on the racetrack. The keys to riding really quickly in the TT have always been knowledge of the course and “staying ahead of the bike.” It also helped that the Suzuki was rock-solid, a dependable mount willing and able to do anything I’d ask of it.
I qualified on the second day of practice and could then set about gradually ratcheting up the tempo. We had entered both the Formula One and 750
Production races, as Shepherd wanted me to run the F1 race essentially as another training exercise. It was a six-lap, 226-mile event that would allow us two pit stops to practice refueling, as well as giving me more back-to-back laps than official practice had permitted. Besides, we had absolutely no hope of doing well against real F1 bikes. The strategy worked, except that I had to stop four times on one lap after a refueling error damaged the fuel-tank cap’s seal, washing me in gasoline until the level in the tank dropped.
No such troubles in the 750 Production TT race, held in ideal conditions-blue skies, not too hot, not too cold, no fog on the Mountain. By the time I got on the GSX-R at the start/finish line, I’d accumulated more than 600 racing miles on it. Climbing aboard, I felt at home, no butterflies in the stomach, no worries about the course.
It seemed like only a few minutes after
being flagged away on the start that I crossed the finish line for the last time, 113 miles later. I had gradually allowed myself the luxury of braking later and committing harder in the slow and medium-speed turns, so I thought I might have gone a bit faster than ever. And so I had: My last lap was 101.2 mph, making me one of only three Americans to have lapped “over the ton” until then. Indeed, I was one of only 28 Americans who had started and finished a TT race, and probably the only one who had done so at age 39 following a 15-year period of racing inactivity and just 18 months after brain surgery.
It’s been two decades since Team Cycle World and I immersed ourselves in the TT, and you might imagine that the memories have grown dim by now. You’d be wrong. Often, as I allow my mind to wander at will, it takes me back to the TT, and suddenly I am aboard our Suzuki, looking through my Bell M2’s bug-splattered visor at a long and winding road that has no end, flicking the bike from one edge of the road to another on the Shepherd Line, picking up peel-off points, braking points and hidden second apexes. And as my mind puts me back in the saddle, I realize, once again, the truth all TT riders know: We might leave the Island, but it never leaves us. -Steven L. Thompson
