Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1545477
T here are some things in life that are truly indescribable. Try as you might, all you can do is draw a blank. So here I sit, drawing blanks - for probably the first time in my life. Simply put, I cannot even begin to describe the craziness that is the Isle of Man TT road races. All I did was witness the madness first- hand and take two laps of the track on a streetbike - to wonder what it would be like to average 120 mph around the 37- mile, 257-turn road course is completely mind-blowing. So I'm going to turn the microphone over to Jeremy Toye, who I ventured to the small island off the coast of Great Britain with, and who took on the street course for the first time. "Imagine the craziest racing you've ever done, be it motocross, Supercross, road racing, the Baja 1000 - whatever, you name it. Now take that and multiply it times 100 and you've just experienced the taxi ride from the airport to the track! Now it's time to go suit up and ride!" exclaimed Toye. "There is nothing in this world like it, hands down. "There is no room for error here, not an inch. We had a couple of really bad reality checks the first couple of days in practice. Some people fell off, and some of them aren't around anymore. That was my first introduction to this place. I hadn't even turned a wheel yet, and they lost people. It was a bad reality check, but it also put things into perspective. If you screw up, you lose. You must respect the course, because it doesn't have any respect for you." Toye was invited to the Isle by the local government, several members of which he met while racing at the Macau Grand Prix the past couple years. (Macau is another totally insane street race, though in compar- ison to the Isle of Man, Toye calls it "tame.") The government set him up with the Martin Bullock Racing team, who supplied him with a Supersport-spec Suzuki GSX-R1000, as well as a mechanic. Toye added to the mix his longtime mechanic, Evan Steel, as well as his friend, Chad Roland. The Isle of Man races aren't your typical weekend of racing. It's an entire two-week ordeal, with the first week being practice, followed by a week of racing. Throw into the equation that it's on public streets, which are opened and closed at different times of the day to accommodate local traffic, and you have yourself a race that is unlike anything else in the world. Toye spent months playing the TT Superbikes game on his Playstation to try and learn which way the track went, as well as watching hundreds of hours of on- board video of the circuit - but nothing was enough to get him ready for the hair-rais- ing, island, street course. "Were not in Kansas anymore," said Toye when I first showed up two days into practice. "The first lap I did was a con- trolled lap where you're following a local marshal on a CBR1000 streetbike and he's hauling ass with a freaking fanny pack on. He leads you around so you have some idea where you're going, so that wasn't too bad. But the second lap they cut you loose. And pretty much my first lap by myself I was scared shitless. I was over it. I had notions of wanting to leave right then and there. I was ready to pack up and leave after the first lap, no joke. "Then for some odd reason, as you get going, things start to come to you. You start figuring out how the course flows. By the third lap you have your eyes open for at least the majority of the lap, which tends to be a good thing [laughs]. Then, by the fourth lap, I actually found myself liking the place. And that in itself is insane - I have no idea how you could like something this ridiculous, but for some reason I was hav- ing fun." But because Toye would only ride three to four laps per day, he found it was almost like starting from scratch every time he got back on the track. "Every day we've had a practice session for the first lap I've been scared out of my mind," Toye said. "Then slowly things come around, and by the fourth lap, I'm really digging it. The strange thing is that from day to day, it's like going back to step one. It's almost like taking your first-ever lap around the place every time you ride." Eventually, Toye and his mechanic Steel, were able to get past the initial scare fac- tor, and by the end of practice week, they had started to get the Suzuki to handle in the ballpark of what they were looking for. But they had some strange obstacles to overcome to get there. "We've actually been getting the bike to feel like something I'm used to," Toye explained. "But it's not easy around here. Just imagine trying to set up a road-race bike to get through an AMA Supercross whoops section, then try and clear the fin- ish-line table top, then finally mix that in with a little Daytona speed and road rac- ing. Then do it all through the middle of a city on streets that are the size of the alley- way behind your house." Toye also found some other interesting aspects to the easily-accessible-to-fans street course. "I'm actually having a hard time because I've been picking out all these trees and signs around the course that I've been using as brake markers, and now that there are all these people showing up, they are starting to block some of my markers and it's been messing me up," Toye said with a laugh. Toye's first race was the six-lap Superbike event on Saturday. He had set out to "have fun and be safe," but once a racer, always a racer, and when the green flag dropped Toye put his head down and went for it. He ended up setting a fast lap of over 117-mph average, finishing 26th and taking the top-rookie honors. The next day, Sunday, is what they call "Mad Sunday" on the island. They turn the mountain section of the island into a one-way road all day to give all the mor- JULY 12, 2006 • C Y C L E N E W S 46 Jeremy Toye's Isle of Man Adventure BY STEVE ATLAS PHOTOS BY STEPHEN DAVIDSON "Real road racing" is what the locals call the Isle of Man... after his first few laps, Jeremy Toye called it simply "insanity." "Real road racing" is what the locals call the Isle of Man... after his first few laps, Jeremy Toye called it simply "insanity." Toye puts his motocross skills to good use over Ballaugh Bridge.