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Part 1 of 4, this is a full account of the Isle Experience, sit back and enjoy.

An Island Virgin's account of the 75th anniversary Manx GP.

Thursday August 20th
With the VFR and CBR1000 on the trailer, a boot full of essentials and a roof box containing three suitcases I really was concerned about the car surviving the trip. I didn't care if it collapsed on the way back as long as we got there.
I needn't have worried, it coped admirably for a 14 year old wreck with 120,000 miles under its belt.
The boat trip was crap. The new "Ben-My-Chree" is a floating skip designed for freight but pushed into passenger service by the greedy Steam Packet Company. It's a flat bottomed vessel and even the slightest swell had it rolling about all over the shop, just about everyone threw up.


 Friday 21st.
I went to sign in, endured the initial riders briefing, then organised my race bike insurance that would allow me to ride on open roads, third party only. Grand total for two weeks ? £8, what a joke.

 Saturday 22nd.
I checked the VFR over, then went out on the CBR for my first ever lap of the Isle of Man circuit. The traffic lights and tin top brigade were very frustrating but I had a good time, lapping around 37 minutes. I had the CBR wound up over 140mph in places and was still eleven minutes outside the qualifying time. Oh Shit !! Would closed roads make that much difference ? I hoped so. People had told me that I shouldn't go round on my road bike but cruise round in the car instead and I didn't believe a word of it, until then. On the bike I was so busy staying alive that I couldn't examine the track or work out the line. In the car, especially with someone else driving, I could imagine the line and place myself where ever I fancied. I got back to my garage, just ten doors down from our B&B in Onchan, swapped bikes and set off for the scrutineering bay on the VFR. It's weird sitting at traffic lights with an unsilenced race engine burbling at tickover while no one pays any attention to you, not even the boys in blue ! It was a two mile trip each way, every day, from my B&B to the paddock and that's when I first realised what a perfectly civilised road bike this beast would make.

Scrutineering was a breeze except for missing lock wire on a couple of exhaust springs. Promising to secure them for the next outing they let me through untroubled. My first time on the start line was nowhere near as nerve wracking as I'd imagined. I queued up, warmed up and went out when the starting marshal let go of my shoulder. No problem. That's when I saw Bray Hill at over 130mph for the first time and found myself rolling off the throttle for no apparent reason other than I couldn't see where I was going. Bumpy ? You have no idea.

Through Quarter Bridge for the first time I thought someone had greased my tyres. Running sideways through Braddan Bridge I decided either the tyre pressures were a mile out or it was gonna take a whole lot longer for them to warm up than I'd expected. Needless to say I was on the wrong pressures having no prior knowledge of road racing and when I explained that I was on 37/32, i.e. 4 psi down on road pressures front and rear, the crew in the paddock fell about laughing. Just like short circuits the tyres need 32 front 30 rear otherwise they just never warm up. Needless to say I was on the right pressures for the rest of the week !

Running into corners too early and too fast saw me almost crash over a dozen times as I tried to turn the bike still hard on the brakes. So wide was I in places that, at Sarah's Cottage for example, I came away with molten plastic on my exhaust having clipped the shrink wrapped bales against the wall, knee down and turning for all my might.

Several scares like this were enough for me to realise that my circuit knowledge was nowhere near the level I had hoped for, having watched Steve Hislop's on board video lap every night for the past year.

My two laps were both inside the qualifying requirement and I laughed my head off. Partly at qualifying "so easy", partly at the fact that I was still alive and in one piece having messed up so often on the worlds most dangerous circuit bar none. 20th of 30 runners. Best Lap of 25' 37.3" = 88.36mph Average Speed.
Those two laps taught me more than a year of study. Any bend that disappeared and had bales all over the exit wall was a bad one. Inversely, no bales and no Marshal point meant no one ever crashed here so it was FLAT OUT !

The speeds were so high and most braking areas, except Ramsey Hairpin, were down hill so my previously awesome short circuit brakes seemed strangely useless approaching Quarter Bridge, Ballacraine, Sulby, Parliament Square, Windy, Creg, Brandish, Signpost, and Governor's. To top it all most of these are incredibly bumpy too. lovely.

 
Sunday 23rd.
The compulsory Newcomers coach trip was very informative, but everyone had their own opinion of each sequence. Which version related to me I had no idea, but it certainly wasn't the Classic boys "Keep your head down and throw it in." I'd have been in the undergrowth, as part of it, in no time at all.

We stopped at Gwen's, just after Ballaugh Bridge, she insists on kissing every Newcomer and supplying them a buffet lunch which is fine but Gwen is 85 years old and mad as a bag ! She announced that we would be the last Newcomers to sample her hospitality as she was retiring which is a shame because Gwen does a phenomenal amount of fund raising for the Manx MC and will be sorely missed. It's a shame she hasn't found a younger replacement!

In the afternoon Joy and I went for our usual lap in the car while I updated my pace notes.

At Ramsey Hairpin the warning lights were on declaring the Mountain road closed, but we continued nonetheless. On the run down from Kate's to the Creg we saw flashing blue lights and were redirected along the old Clypse course back to Onchan.

The morning news revealed that a car had rolled over at Hillberry and two lads had died in the burning wreckage.