VOLUME ISSUE JULY , P87
blood than anything else before
taking on Bray Hill.
Putting this aside, we line up
on Glencrutchery Road for the
first round of practice on Mon-
day morning. This is to be the
longest of any day of TT 2023,
with a morning practice session
followed by an afternoon quali
-
fying. A possible five to seven
laps are on the cards.
But we don't get as far as the
end of lap two.
Coming out of the Bungalow,
under the bridge and up Hail
-
wood's Rise, the Honda drops
back from fifth to fourth gear
with the throttle pinned on full
revs and smashes a valve. The
bike keeps going until I get
around to Tower bends on the
following lap when it finally cries
enough and splutters to a halt,
leaving me stuck at the base of
the mountain and the furthest
spot away from the pits.
It is only lap two and I must
watch for six agonizingly boring
hours as bikes whizz by one
after the other, but I do at least
get a close up of just how good
the top guys like Dunlop, Hick
-
man, Johnson and Harrison are.
Dunlop is particularly spectacu-
lar, using the tiny pavement strip
on the outside of the white line
against the stone wall as his
preferred racing line.
It is a full night and day's work
for the WCR guys as they pull
the motor out of one bike and fit
it to the race bike. They are done
by 12:00 pm on Tuesday and
still with no Jurby available, we
put the bike in the van and head
to the north end of the island for
some highly illegal public road
testing (see Instagram picture).
