A TYPICAL PRACTICE WEEK
OUR PRACTICE WEEK--
IT HAPPENED LIKE THIS
They are not all poor but have a lot of sense---parts for race bikes don't come cheap, so the guys and families, mechanics and helpers erect some tasty tents, place campers and RVs and / or sleep in the van with the bike.....for the whole fortnight !
Fairly recently, this area has had a shower and washing complex added so there are more creature comforts than there were only a few years ago.
I remember sponsoring a large dehumidifier which was installed in the NOBLES PARK cricket club changing rooms so that some of these nomads could have their leathers dried between wet practice sessions..A lot of strange, coloured water was eventually emptied from that dehumidifier and I am led to believe that the groundsman "creosoted" a few fences with the resulting liquid !!!
The campsite is pretty well up to continental standards and it is full to capacity every year. A "prowl" of friendly but efficient security guards patrol the site 24 hours day and night. Hence you and your bikes and possessions are safe
The night before we have all decided to hit the sack early but we have difficulty sleeping.
The excitement is building and we do not want to sleep in.....I drift off but am woken by my alarm clock and half asleep, try to find my trousers (where did I throw them last night ?)----
There are faint rustlings in the next room and eventually those of us intending to head out to practice, creep carefully down the stairs with every floor board creaking. We all make more noise by "shushing" each other. We crawl out of the front door and get in, and on, our forms of transport. We try not to make too much clatter driving away but dear John has an aftermarket CARBONCAN exhaust and--well, you know what it's like !!!
So, at 4.40 AM (Yes--4.40 AM !) we arrive at the back of the TT Grandstand and look for the rider we are "supporting".
My Goodness, the light is on in his tent (and he does have a really posh tent this year !) so he must be at least awake.Yes there he is cleaning his teeth, standing in only a pair of very stylish blue silk boxer-style underpants ........We say hello in awe at this man who in a few minutes will be averaging over 115 miles per hour and he still has time TO CLEAN HIS TEETH.
We help by getting the bike out of the bike tent.
Not our bike..
The dawn is showing in the east so we prepare to take the bike up to the scrutineering bays for clearance.The bike was fuelled up last night and lockwired and cleaned. The checks were all registered and ticked on the "Master board" stuck on the wall of the tent so we can all see that everything HAS been done and done properly. Each member of our little team has a specific job assigned to him and we all set about trying to get the last vestiges of dreams out of our eyes so that there is a rhythm and a purpose to each task.
"SCRUTINEER"
on the front plus SPONSORSHIP details for heavens sake (!). We hand over the riders card and immediately our bike is shaken, and subjected to the most rigorous of checks.It is very closely examined for just about everything and eventually the scrutineer signs the card to say all is OK and we push the bike into the paddock area..
Our rider, WITH HIS HAIR COMBED (what is this man on ? ) brings his helmet to the scrutineering bay for checking and it is also cleared. We can now start the bike and warm it up. Round us other machines are started and carefully revved up to warm the engine, radiator and oil.....
Our rider arrives on the scene, grins (or rather grimaces), and then disappears again this time to the loo....He is soon back and hops aboard the bike to get his leathers stretched. He pulls on his new gloves
given to him by the TT Supporters Club and his face takes on the appearance of total and absolute concentration..
WE ARE READY--the running temperature is right and the tyre pressures are also correct for the conditions. We now push our rider, his machine plus one of our little team who is beginning to wilt, up on to GLENCRUTCHERY ROAD, that famous road that in a few minutes will become the start and finish straight of the WORLD FAMOUS TT COURSE--(The first-time-at-the-TT team member can not take the pace so goes into the fuelling bays to watch our man away--or is it just to get his second wind perhaps) We also leave the rider now and he edges himself into a good position so he can get away earlier than the rest.The engines are making a real noise now as the first men set out.
(GOOD MORNING, JENNY ROWLINSON----Beautiful as ever !)
We clock our rider through his laps and all too soon the Practice session is over. He comes back up pit lane and we see all the flies spattered on the front number plate. He gets off his machine absolutely soaking with sweat and grabs a welcome soup from one of the team.The guy who earlier was wilting rides the bike down to the tent and parks it on the paddock stand. We then sit in the tent with our rider for the debriefing session and all reports are logged....We must look at the rear suspension, check the rad, and try a pound difference in the rear tyre. We all then roll back to our house for breakfast (our rider comes too) and to hear the report of the morning practice on RADIO TT....We are over the moon to hear that our rider is eleventh fastest which is good considering...Maybe combing his hair DOES help with the streamlining..Our rider goes back to bed and we start looking at the minor problems encountered in the practice.....
Fred and Charlie give us the Practice Leader Boards on breakfast Radio TT
Before we leave to return to the paddock area, the Plebs have risen for BREAKFAST and are green with ENVY as we relate what we have been doing since we left our warm beds more than three hours before!!
Nick Jefferies
I was proud to be an area rep for the T.T.Supporters Club for a number of years and promoted the club to fans in the Thames Valley.It was a shame that I had to give it up (mainly due to other committments) but I was, for a while, a great enthusiast selling the wonders of the T.T.to those who either wanted to go or those who had been but needed more information....
I wrote a number of articles for the TTSC magazine which is edited by Graham Bean and Michael Hammonds. As a long-time attender I have a wealth of first hand stories which I have experienced, unlike those people who take other peoples experiences and rewrite them as their own ! (a fact which has become disturbingly acceptable these days)
I was there and have all the proof, in photographs taken by me and all the kitsch in my loft which helps to keep my heating bill down since it all is packed carefully on the loft floor..
I am reproducing one of my many articles here to show a thirty year scatter of stories which were written as I saw the events.
We all know what happened in 1995....
Well, I spent much of 1955 helping to push a pram round the paddock area behind the Grandstand.
I was friendly with Geraldine Reid, who was the sister of Pat Reid, the wife of Geoff Duke...
The occupant of said pram was no other than Mr."DUKE MARKETING" himself, Peter Duke....
However it was Geoff who put himself in the history books with a lap on his his Gilera (No.50 in the Senior) only a whisker short of the MAGIC ton lap...
Geoff actually did 99.97 mph which will forever remain extremely controversial.....
Dustbin style fairings were worn by a number of machines that year but Gilera had opted for a short nose type number plate extension
I remember this race because I was part of the works Norton team....
My father, mother and I were drafted in to the team to man the early warning station at Ramsey Hairpin to "spot" the team riders coming up out of Ramsey so the main team just before the Waterworks could be prepared to give the riders signals as to their positions, times and speeds.I had a large blackboard and some sticks of white chalk so as my father spotted a rider, he would shout the number across to me and I would write it in large numerals on the blackboard and flash it up to the signallers.
My mother recorded the riders on lap charts and we managed just fine.
The riders we had to spot not only included riders of Nortons but also the opposition.
I still have mums charts and we spotted the following riders
12--McIntyre, 17--Ennett, 37--Lomas, 38--Armstrong, 50--Duke, 54--Hartle, 63--Quincey, 69--Kavanagh, 76--Brett, 82--Surtees
These were teams within teams with Duke and Reg Armstrong on Gileras...
Geoff won the race over SEVEN laps at an average speed of 97.93 mph, his third and last TT win.
My father and I had only one minor hitch when the sound of a Gilera coming out of Ramsey halfway through the race was thought to be that of Reg Armstrong but NO, NO, NO !!!....It was in fact Geoff Duke who had caught and passed his team mate....
I had a very quick series of palpitations as I had to change a "38" to a "50" on my display board !!! (Remember, in those days we used CHALK, not the sophisticated boards we use today-It meant erasing each time a rider came and rechalking numbers)
We were filmed in action by a BBC outside broadcast camera team but we have never seen our efforts in glorious technicolour---Have you this sequence on your video-files Mr Duke Marketing ?
1965 will always be remembered as the year when the Senior Race was run in bad, nay diabolical weather conditions....
Two team mates on M.V.Agusta machines would, in normal circumstances have dominated this race by the proverbial mile..
However, Giacomo Agostini fell off at Sarahs Cottage when he rode through a "river" of water coursing down the hill and promptly retired..
He sat and watched the rest stumble and fumble their way round. His team mate Mike Hailwood arrived and did exactly as Ago had done
However Mike picked up a very bent bike and literally kicked it into a rideable machine.
He push-started the machine DOWN the hill, got the "wreck" going again, and went on to WIN the race from Joe Dunphy
Controversy still rages--Should Mike have pushstarted his machine AGAINST the traffic ???
The 1965 250 cc race was special when SIX different makes of machine filled the first six places
1975 was another year to remember---I sat in the Grandstand with a large group of friends who had come over with me that year and we saw Mick Grant push his Boyer Kawasaki to a new outright lap record of 108.92 mph--In the same race Keith Martin rode a glorious-sounding Benelli Six---
Rolf Steinhausen won the Sidecar race using a Konig SPEEDBOAT engine
However it was a unique race which stays in the memory
This was the TEN lap production race
YES-ten laps, but each machine was shared by two riders and it really was a major test for the machine
Dave Croxford and Alex George won on a 748 cc Triumph at a respectable speed of 99.60 mph with a fastest lap of 102.83 mph...
The race was repeated in 1976 but we have not seen this endurance style race since---
TIME TO TRY IT AGAIN ???
My father died just after this article was published--He often wrote his own experiences on the Island as I do now-
