The Isle of Man TT

Editor’s Note: The 2014 Isle of Man TT, a two-week affair, is taking place right now as you read this, with the six-lap Superbike TT race scheduled for tomorrow, May 31. And the racing will continue on this small island in the Irish Sea until June 6. Here’s a look at how this classic event thrives in an era when other series struggle.

The Isle of Man TT has a unique problem in motorcycle racing terms: It has more spectators banging on the door to get in than can physically be shipped to the event.

The Tourist Trophy bucks the trend of dipping finances and declining popularity, as well as the reliance on ever more bizarre rules and interclass segregation to fill grids. It is still the bravest riders on the fastest bikes tackling a circuit of public roads on a weather-beaten rock in the Irish Sea.

This is the golden age of TT racing. Obviously, the race has never been quicker. Records don’t stay unbroken for long anymore, but, crucially, it’s never been more competitive; 72-minute, 151-mile races are won by a second, a margin of 0.02 percent of the total race time. And 151 miles is the medium-distance race. Superbike and Senior TTs are fought over 226 brain-scrambling miles. Agostini and Hailwood routinely won TTs by a clear eight minutes in what some regard as the halcyon 1960s. So what’s changed?

Under the direction of Paul Phillips, a young, die-hard roadrace fan drafted into the Manx Government in 2006, the TT has been rejuvenated. For years, there were murmurings the event would reach its centenary, in 2007, then be terminated. Now no one can dream of such a scenario.

Twenty-five years ago, Team Cycle World put me in the saddle of a new …

Circa 1994: After I had done a few hundred laps of the 37.73-mile Isle of Man …

Considering that the first Isle of Man Tourist Trophy in 1907 was almost …

The TT is in such good health because Phillips grasped what fans, racers, and sponsors all needed from the TT. One wasn’t mercilessly chased while ignoring the others. One of the main reasons naysayers predicted the end was nigh for the historic race was the horrendous safety record.

“We never talk about safety,” the 35-year-old explains. “The TT is not safe, but we talk about risk management, and we’ve reduced the risk by having better riders, training for newcomers, better training for marshals, excellent communication systems, excellent medical cover, improved spectator control. We’ve worked hard to minimize the risk, and it’s definitely had an effect.”

It was a ballsy move to embrace the TT’s risks, but the historic event slipstreamed a global extreme-sports marketing machine. It also benefitted from the launch of inexpensive on-board HD cameras, used to pepper a number of leading bikes, filming the previously unfilmable. TT highlights air on a free-to-view channel in the UK and on Discovery in the US. Clips also find their way onto YouTube. If you’re not blown away by a fast, on-board lap of the TT, you either have wooden eyes or have never ridden (or possibly seen) a motorcycle.

Then there are star riders, who, out of leathers, look like a group of road-repair workers. McGuinness, Dunlop, Martin, Hutchinson, Anstey—riders whose skill resides under the pasty skin and thinning or unkempt hair of the bloke next door. The TT has always had characters, but it never exploited their attraction as successfully as it is now.

“I always say the motorcycle at the TT is like the ball in football,” Phillips says. “It’s just something you need to play the game. It’s very much about the man versus the other man versus the course. Invariably, the type of person to do well at this is someone who lives life in a maverick way. If they weren’t motorcycle racers, they’d be drug dealers or jumping cars over canyons. They live like every day is their last.”

Fitting that description is Guy Martin, a reluctant poster boy for the TT. The Englishman debuted at the TT in 2004 and has been on the podium 13 times.

“Why do I keep going back?” Martin wonders for a while. “Because there’s nothing like that course. The first night of practice makes me think, ‘Ah, this is why I ride motorbikes.’ The course has everything, and you can’t have a favorite section, but I hold the record from Glen Helen to Ballaugh, through Cronk-y-Voddy. It’s fast. A man’s section. Out of Glen Helen, there’s a straight with fifth- and sixth-gear kinks. When the bike isn’t set up right, you’re a passenger. I’ve been up the bank there, shoulder in the hedge. If you get it wrong, you’re buggered.”

The current kings are blue-collar heroes, a generation who worked (and, in some cases, still do) proper jobs and rode streetbikes before getting into racing. Few are athletes who have been competing since they were six, but that could be changing. This year, young Brit Danny Webb, who raced in Moto3 last season, is debuting on The Island.

“I’ve always wanted to do the TT,” the 21-year-old says. “I love the atmosphere, so I thought now’s the right time to ask some questions. The opportunity was there with Ryan , so why not start my TT career now rather than in five years’ time?”

Webb exemplifies the TT, working to bring in fresh talent behind close-to-retirement multiple winners. The Manx Government employs ex-racers to liaise with riders, leading them on laps months before they’re due to race. In the past, some riders turned up ill prepared and were left to their own devices. This created an easily avoidable danger.

“The issue was the massive difference between those at the front and those at the back,” Phillips explains. “So we set about bringing in stronger riders to close the gap from last to first. That’s had two benefits: The quality of riders at the back is much higher than previously, so if the guys at the front are catching them, the relative speed is safer. Plus, it’s made the racing closer and more exciting. That’s the biggest improvement this management has made.”

Sadly, it’s rare if the fortnight passes without one racer being killed, but in the eight TTs since Phillips and his team took over the TT (2006–’13), there have been nine racer deaths. In the eight TTs immediately prior, there were 22.

“People have a choice whether they want to do it or not, whether they want to watch it or not, and whether they want to sponsor,” Phillips says.

This choice, and the kind of people making it, appeals to the fans who know not even Valentino Rossi or Nicky Hayden possesses the nuts to say they could show a 42-year-old ex-bricklayer the way around this track.

While history and heritage is important to the TT, it was the first major race series to introduce alternative-fuel racing with the one-lap TTXGP, since renamed the Zero TT, in 2009. From day one, it was given good billing on a race day, not swept to the end of the schedule when the fans have gone home. The Zero TT is a competition that has been dominated by US company MotoCzysz.

Another appeal of the TT is being able to sit outside the beer tent in the paddock behind the grandstand. Do it late on a race afternoon and it’s almost guaranteed you’ll be rubbing shoulders with a TT winner sinking a few pints in celebration. You don’t need a VIP pass or media credentials. You don’t even need to pay for such access. Just walk up the hill from Douglas, The Island’s picturesque capital.

Within the same area is a temporary market of rather scruffy T-shirt dealers’ tents, ice cream vans, and a tiny hut from which gray-haired ladies sell cans of soda, chocolate bars, and the special headsets fans need to stay tuned into the radio commentary. It’s all so quaint, special, and anti-corporate. Just over Glencrutchery Road from the grandstand is the antique scoreboard, operated by the local Boy Scout troop, which keeps tabs on cutting-edge superbikes.

This unique atmosphere is created by the problem outlined in the very first line of this story: There are only so many people The Island can physically take. Some 40,000 fans reach The Island over the two weeks; 75 percent by sea, the rest by air. The ferries ricochet between mainland and island around the clock, taking one lot home as others line up at the dock to start their pilgrimage. Because it takes a certain amount of planning, fans are determined to make the most of their visit once they land in Douglas. Spectators from all over the world are in almost constant movement from one vantage point to another, riding the course when the roads are open, and visiting coves, castles, and seaside towns between races.

“Economically, we want to get more people here, but we’re an island with an infrastructure for 80,000 for 50 weeks of the year, and we’re edging toward capacity.”

Accepting this, the TT is looking to “extend its brand.” The first step was the Classic TT launched last year. This saw the middle weekend of the August Manx Grand Prix given a huge marketing push to become, arguably, the biggest classic race in the world in its very first year starring the current TT heroes.

Then there’s the long-mooted TT World Series that would see TT stars compete on public road circuits around the globe as part of a world championship, culminating at the TT. Phillips says the project is close to “starting a procurement process to decide an investor and promoter. Then we’ll look at a test event, followed by a series in 2016–’17.”

How much a world series will affect the allure of the original is unknown, but in a world of hyperbole and disappointments, the TT still delivers.

TT TIMELINE

A few milestones from the long history of the world’s greatest roadrace:

1907 First TT is held on the 15-mile "Short" Course. Overall winner of the combined singles and twins class is Charlie Collier on a Matchless single, completing the 158-mile race at an average of 38.21 mph.

1911 First race on the 37.73-mile Snaefell Mountain Course still in use today. British riders on Indian twins take a 1-2-3 in the Senior TT.

1920 Lap record is set at 55.62 mph by George Dance on a Sunbeam.

1938 Lap record is raised to 91 mph by Harold Daniell on a Norton. Remains unbroken for 12 years.

1957 Bob McIntyre completes first 100-mph lap, on a Gilera, and wins the Senior on the race's 50th anniversary.

1967 Mike Hailwood pegs lap record at 108.77 mph, a speed that stands for 11 years.

1977 Joey Dunlop wins his first TT of 26. The Jubilee Classic race.

1989 Is won by Steve Hislop who breaks Dunlop's 118.54-mph lap speed record, pushing it to 121.34 mph.

2000 Joey Dunlop, at 48, records his 26th and final TT win at the start of the new millennium.

2007 The centenary year and John McGuinness records first 130-plus-mph lap.

CURRENT ISLE OF MAN TT LAP RECORDS

Note: Lap records can be set only in races, not qualifying.