CLASSIC VICTORY
I wrote this piece a couple of years ago when the 2016 Classic TT had just ended. To read it again now brings back lots of memories, great and not so great, the emotion of it all and the effort required to simply get yourself and bike on the grid to the other side of the planet.
This race was the culmination of five years of graft, preparation, expense and ‘living’ the Isle of Man and the TT course. To see my son Alex win his class and see him on the podium with Michael Dunlop, Dean Harrison and James Hillier, three TT professionals with well over 20 TT victories between them, is something even now I find hard to fathom. It’s almost surreal. To see him retire from that part of the sport immediately after the win is something I understand totally but never truly accepted, I guess. It’s been a family thing since he was 13, and he is still racing classic bikes here in Australia, even though he’s now 25 and married with a new baby.
He made the choice to stop racing the TT. Losing three close friends to the circuit in two years and having more than a few close calls, including a chopper ride from the top of the mountain and a ‘destroyed’ BMW S 1000 RR Superbike lying in a paddock, it was probably an easy one for him in the end.
He’d actually made up his mind before that last race but had already agreed to ride for the team. He told me on the last lap of the 2016 Classic TT he went through Ballagarey Corner – the same one Guy Martin famously set on fire with his CBR 1000 RR in 2010, often called ‘Ballascary’ – with the throttle pinned in top gear, the bike near out of control, and his heart just about to jump out of his body. He wanted that win so
