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Win, Lose or Die explores why road racers still choose the Isle of Man TT
Stuart Barker’s Win, Lose or Die gives riders, families and friends the space to explain why road racing continues to exert its pull despite the ever-present knowledge that one mistake can carry the highest possible price
Why use two wheels when one will do? Peter Hickman in full flight on his BMW at Northern Ireland’s North West 200 in May
IOM TT Races
Most fans of motor sport have heard of the Isle of Man TT. Stuart Barker’s Win, Lose or Die investigates motorcycling’s subculture of racing on the roads, from the TT to lesser-known events such as Macau and Ireland’s Ulster Grand Prix, Northwest 200 and Tandragee 100.
Like mountaineering with and without ropes, racing motorcycles on closed public roads is a very different game to doing it on purpose-built short circuits. If you climb with ropes and make a mistake, you’ll most likely get away with it. If you do the same without ropes, you most likely won’t.
Win, Lose or Die
Stuart Barker
Blink Publishing, £22 ISBN 9781785128967
Then why race between walls and telegraph poles when you can compete surrounded by spacious run-off areas? Long-time motorcycle journalist and former TT programme editor Barker has plenty of riders explain why they happily face the huge risks of racing on the roads, including James McBride, who describes the buzz he got riding through a 160mph corner at Northern Ireland’s Dundrod circuit – the fastest street circuit of them all – at 136.4mph.
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“I mean, going through Budore? Oh my God! It was like going off the end of the world if you got it right. Sixth gear, no braking… You just roll the throttle a tiny bit to make the bike turn in, then immediately crack it back open to get out the other side. Then, when the road dips away, the front end rises as the rear end digs in, and the bike weaves and snakes like a king cobra rearing up! When you get through that and the front end lands again, you’re just like, ‘Whoooa! That was mental!’”
All the other riders in Win, Lose or Die agree – racing on the roads makes short circuits feel boring. And all of them are fully aware of the downsides because all of them have lost a friend or two to the game.
“If owt goes wrong, I’ll come home in a box,” said nine-times TT winner David Jefferies, who lost his life during practice for the 2003 event.
Win, Lose or Die is a bit like reading a book about war. Sometimes it’s so traumatic – death, hideous life-changing injuries, the voices of the bereaved – that you get through a few pages and have to leave it for a while. And yet the voices of those still here – riders, family, friends – speak in unison when there’s talk of banning racing on the roads.
One of the ‘ups’ of Michael Dunlop’s motorcycle road-racing career – trophies
David Maginnis/Pacemaker Press
“If you ban the TT, then where do you draw the line?” wonders three-times TT winner Ian Simpson. “Riders get killed in British Superbikes and MotoGP, so you’d have to ban them too. And mountaineering. And horse-riding. And so many other sports and pastimes. It seems that every single day the government comes up with some ridiculous pish, saying we can’t do this and we can’t do that.”
“This job has it’s ups and downs, that’s for sure,” adds the remarkable Michael Dunlop, who’s won 36 TTs and lost his father, brother and uncle to racing on the roads. “But nobody’s holding a gun to my forehead to make me do it.”
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