Novice with an Orange Jacket – Isle of Man TT 2008

My mouth was drier than an Egyptians sandal and my palms sweatier that a fat girls bra. The moment of truth was finally here and an eerie silence descended upon me as I waited for it all to begin. Just to make matters worse, there was 6 minute hold-up as they cleaned part of the course and someone walked up to me showing a ‘Lack of adhesion at Snugborough’ sign minutes before I set off.

Snugborough? It could have said Yellow-Brick-Road for all the sense it made, my pickled brain went to instant mush and I frantically tried to run through the 300 corners in my head and work out where the hell Snugborough was.

This had to be the biggest build up to anything in my entire life, there was no turning back now and if I didn’t already feel bad enough, the race organizers made me wear a stylish and bright orange vest to warn everyone that I was a TT novice and could possibly do anything or go anywhere at any time.

Almost without warning it was time to go and the travelling marshal blasted off like he was on a mission and I dumped the clutch and burbled away like the novice I now was. I threw a few gears at it in an attempt to keep up but the race bikes stiff suspension, thin grips, hard foam seat and race tyres sent every bump and ripple right through me and I vibrated off down the road like I was riding a rampant rabbit.

My body couldn’t cope with the vibrations from the road and with-in seconds my vision was blurred and my mouth bounced up and down like a set of wind-up chattering teeth.

It was a massive and serious shock to the system and I hadn’t even done ½ a mile of the 37 ¾ mile circuit. Before I had time to react, panic, pull-in or turn back, I was already on my way down Bray Hill and the Travelling Marshal was a mere spec in the distance.

You dread moments like this. Times when you are completely and utterly out of your comfort zone and you don’t know what to expect next. I mean I’d done my homework so I knew which corners came after one another but the pot holes, bumps, crests, grates, white lines, curbs and wall lined course threw up some interesting surprises and the sheer speed of the place made your eyes pop out of your head and touch the inside of your visor.

The only bit of comfort was the warmth coming from my soiled pants which soon became a lot warmer as we crested the hill after the Wagon and Horses pub and the road fell away while as we were flat out in top gear. Holly sh*t, as if Bray Hill wasn’t bad enough, this was like falling off the face of the earth. Oh yes, and you are supposed to keep it pinned for a mile down the other side as well and on to the fastest part of the track.

I think I must have been holding my breath for most of the first 9 miles as kind of felt dizzy braking into Ballacraine and had to tell myself to breath, my body still needed oxygen even if it was rapidly falling into a state of shock.

The rest of the lap was a vibrating blur and it made a million times worst knowing that they set the fast guys off when the orange jacketed novices reached Kirk Michael. This felt like a red rag to a bull, us novices were the red rag and they’d just let the bulls lose.

It was a sense of relief and excitement as I finished my first lap of the Isle of Man TT course on closed roads and could hardly speak as I got off the bike. First time for everything eh?! The guys  quickly re-fuelled and sent me straight back out for another two laps before I had time to get changed and run to the airport and before I knew it I was back in the saddle and heading out again, this time alone.

You think the first lap following the Marshal was scary enough; the first lap by yourself is absolutely terrifying as you’ve no one to follow or gauge yourself from. When someone finally does come past they do at warp-speed, pulling rabbits out of the hedges, blowing toupees off pensioners and while laying long darkies with the bike shaking its head in protest from the demanding island course.

I hardly slept the first night as the whole TT experience reverberated through my nerve endings and kept me awake for all but a few hours. I needed to talk to my new team manager Clive Padgett about the bike as it felt really stiff and I could still feel the bumps of Kerrowmoar while I lay under the duvet. Clive was rushing back over to Donington Park BSB for a day or so and I knew he had a flight around 6:30am so I braved it and called him up just after 5am.

Luckily and typically Clive was still up and just happened to be in the back of his race truck measuring up suspension springs and working stuff out for John McGuinness and their new Superbike. A good chat with Clive ended in me realizing that there is little you can do to help the bike over all the bumps without it having a negative effect elsewhere. I mean, you can’t make a bike perfect on a circuit this long anyway so everything is a compromise in some way and if you can deal with the majority of the bumps the bike will still go around corners and there is definitely plenty of those.

I quickly needed to get my head around the feeling of racing on the roads and the bumpier surface as this isn’t Brands Hatch. I’ve been proper spoilt racing only on silky smooth race-tracks in the short circuit world and to be truthful it’s all I have known since I ever started racing as this was my first ever road race. I mean only passed my bike test a few months ago so to be honest the whole road thing was kinda of a new feeling as well. A race bike on a road circuit is from another planet and this planet I am now on is physical, fast and tries to rip your head off your shoulders when it pops above the Perspex screen.

It was a great relief when the next evenings practice went well and I felt more comfortable as I now had more of an idea what to expect from the course and the bumps didn’t bother me half as much as they did the first evening. The warmth was now coming from my glowing smile and the reflection from my orange jacket. By the third evening I was totally focused on improving my pace and as I did the place slowly turned from closed road in the Isle of Man into a race-track; and this is when it got really interesting.

One of my main intentions was to build up slowly lap by lap as you tried to improve in areas where you had plenty of room left or people blasted passed you like you were stood still and made you realise that you needed to pull your socks up in that section.

On short circuits you can wait for a tow or if you mess up you just run off the track and at best you only have a few minutes to wait before you come around again and can have another crack at getting it right. The TT course is totally different as it was taking me around 20 minutes to do a lap and you can only do 2 laps on a tank full. You certainly don’t want to follow someone who is much faster than yourself as if you get it wrong, there is only one place you will end up and that is in serious trouble. So, little by little, step by step you have to serve your apprenticeship and take your time, not easy for a guy who puts 2 minute noodles in the microwave for 60 seconds and squashes his tea bag repeatedly so it brews quicker.

We missed a couple of nights practice due to the bad weather and that hurt progress as every lap you do around here is a lesson learnt and you can never do too many laps around the Island. On the last nights practice I got a bit giddy and was swiftly reminded that you don’t get giddy around here as the walls will win every time.

An experienced TT rider came by and signalled for me to tuck in and I happily started to follow, look and learn. He caught a slower rider and slipped past while I got held up for a mile or so and got a bit frustrated and choose Ballacraine a 2nd gear right hander where you down-shifted from 6th as my passing place. As I jumped on the brakes to slip by and also make up a bit of lost ground I soon realised that the new front brake pads weren’t fully scrubbed in and I was running in a bit quicker than I had previously been doing.

As soon as I got a glimpse of the hay bales half way around the corner I knew I was going to hit one and stupidly I just froze. I daren’t grab the front brake any harder in case it tucked the front and I didn’t want to lean it over any more as the corner felt dirty and slippy. As the stack of bales quickly got closer I braised myself for impact as the inevitable was going to happen and it did. Smack, I hit one of the hay bales lining the wall with my foot-peg and to my astonishment I stayed upright and didn’t crash. I quickly looked down and all I could see was hay sticking out of my boots and the foot peg slightly bent but that was it, a proppa lucky escape. That fired a warning shot right threw me and as I knocked it down to 1st and got going again, guess who blasted passed?

Yeah, just about the worst person on the planet apart from my Dad or Clive Padgett being behind me and seeing it happen, it had to be my new team-mate and absolute TT legend John McGuiness! As soon as he was passed he gave me a little sign and pointed to his head,(Think Jamie Think!) it was a lucky and little reminder for me to think about what I am doing as John obviously had a bird’s eye view of my mistake and was obviously less than impressed.

The next time I was on track was for my first of two Supersport 600cc races and after getting a few bollockings from team members and a size 10 boot up the backside from my Dad’s right foot for the bent peg, I had settled down and was looking forward to the 4 lap race.

The amazing thing about the TT is the way the riders are with each other just minutes before they blast off at full chat to tackle the most dangerous and challenging motorcycle circuit on the planet. I’ve always been used to riders in a focused trance, wearing sunglasses and trying to look cool. Now it was handshakes and best wishes all round and your competitors coming up to you saying “Av a good’un and see you after for a pint”, just brilliant.

Both races were incredible and my pit stops slick as they come as my Dad Phil refuelled the tank as Digger ran around like a headless chicken, changing my visor, cleaning the screen, giving me a drink and getting me back out there as fast as possible. The Padgett’s CBR600RR Honda ran like a dream and I had no moments in either race or close calls, a real team effort and I couldn’t have asked for a better team around me.

My ultimate goal from my first TT was to do a 120mph lap and I ended up just 4 seconds short, doing a 119.6mph lap which was to Milky’s amusement who laughed out loud when he found out as we had a £100 wager on it.

After my first lap I felt that this was probably the most ridiculous, foolish and exciting thing I could ever do with my clothes on. Two weeks later, I left the Island feeling this was the ultimate test of man and machine and the TT course is the best motorcycle racetrack in the world.

Jamie