► Challenging TT legend John McGuinness in his own back yard
► From CAR magazine’s September 2013 issue
► ‘He’s so skilled with high-speed machinery, he’s superman’
He’s gone. The Fireblade’s tail light stays in sight for a couple of seconds between the grass banks out of the Gooseneck. Then McGuinness is out of sight. He’s on a bog standard road bike not even trying. I’m in a supercharged Ariel Atom doing my level best to keep the 20 times TT winner in view.
We’re on the Mountain section of the hallowed and deadly 37 and three-quarter mile Isle Of Man TT course, burnt rubber is still fresh on the asphalt from the final race of this year’s Senior TT. A race 41-year-old John McGuinness, the Morecambe Missile, won by ten seconds from Honda team-mate Michael Dunlop. Dunlop, nephew of late and massively lamented legend Joey Dunlop, had made McGuinness work like never before for that win, and the sweet taste of victory is still on McGuinness’s lips like an off-white ’tache from the head of a pint of the dark stuff.
His hands are still blistered, the balls of his feet tender from those six laps in June when he resisted Dunlop’s spirited attempt to usurp him.
‘Wins here are all special, but that one’s right up there. I had no answer to him in the 600 race or the Superstock and I had to take it on the chin. I had to sit there with people talking about king dethroned and all that, and I had to turn it to the positive. I couldn’t go home without a win,’ he says.
‘I was off for a paper up until then,’ he says, shaking his head ruefully. ‘I like him, but you get motivated. I had the pace but I couldn’t find it for six laps. It gets to the point at the end of the week when it’s easy to lose concentration.’
And he has to concentrate in the Atom. After an exploratory acclimatisation, he’s off up the road in a ‘steady away’ manner only to come howling back into the layby ten minutes later in a blur of revs and supercharger racket.
‘I did a kangaroo away, hope nobody saw me. I’ve never driven an open-wheeled thing before. It’s a different animal. I was a bit spooked. I was half-concentrating and veered over to the other side of the road. The steering’s almost too karty.’
And he had a sizeable slide giving it some through Verandah on the way up Hailwood Rise. ‘It’s so raw. That gave me a fright, that. I thought I was going over the grass. Joe Bloggs with no experience is going to be through a hedge in this. The engine makes power right up to the limiter, very linear, very Honda. But it needs a bit more over-rev or a soft limiter.’ And McGuinness knows Hondas. His 1000cc Fireblade race bikes have propelled him to greatness, the flighty Honda-powered Atom is less alien to him than it might appear.
He’s out again to further get the measure of this engaging device. McGuinness is a big man and in his race leathers and boots he’s both tight in the cockpit and cramped in the pedal box. But he’s audibly warming to the machine. It is cold and windy on Snaefell mountain. The only sounds are the clank of the Mountain railway and McGuinness revving the spuds off the blown Civic Type R engine.
‘It’s good now – just tiny inputs to the wheel, miniature increments. You can drive it like a pussycat and do 35mpg or put your boot in and it’s madness. I thought Type R’s had no midrange or bottom-end but this has. Driving a bit of road I know inside out I can’t get the lines because the view’s so low compared to a bike and this feels wide, even though it’s not. But I’m old school on a bike anyway, I sit up on top and ride like a copper. They all take the piss. But sometimes you need to be yourself. Unnatural or untidy riders are rarely fast.’
To gain some perspective on just how fast McGuinness is requires cursory examination of the figures. Riding his race bike, he was clocked at 193mph on the Sulby straight. His front brake lever has a large rectangle machined in the end to prevent air pressure at those speeds pressing the brake on. He rode three of the six laps of the Senior at more than 131mph average speed and set the fastest lap at 131.671mph.
McGuinness’s profession of road racer is irredeemably dangerous. The racing is euphemistically called ‘between the hedges’ but there is street furniture, trees, walls and houses too. The line between success and terminal failure is reaper-scythe fine.
He’s warming to the spartan nature of the Atom now. ‘It’s a recreational vehicle, something to stick in your shed and go for an ice cream in on a Sunday afternoon. Most cars are just commodities, things have got to make you smile a bit.
‘Everything’s really nice but this steering wheel is pants. It looks like something off a 1981 Mini. The gearbox is nice, it sounds lovely and you know the thing’ll do 100,000 miles.’
We park up again. McGuinness is conspicuous in his race gear, the Atom is hardly demure and race fans approach him unhesitatingly for a chat or an autograph. He obliges with the easy transparency of a man who has known this island since he could hop onto the ferry here from Heysham.
‘I’d ride my BMX onto the ferry hiding behind a van or something when they were loading, then I’d just walk up the stairs onto the deck with everyone. I knew I wanted to be a roads rider, I knew in 1982. I can’t watch football, tennis, cricket, no interest in any of it. I like a fast car though. We all like a fast car. I had a McLaren 12C for a bit last year and it absolutely terrified me. Cars don’t normally blow my shirt off, but that thing… I must have done about 20 racing starts in it.’
Then some more exalted residents appear and stop for a chat. Enduro world champion David Knight jogs up the mountain with two dogs, one a most unlikely cross-country Basset hound. They shoot the breeze in this stiff wind, until their conversation is punctuated by the arrival of MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow in a white BMW 3-series estate.
McGuinness is the Valentino Rossi of the roads. And just as the Italian MotoGP man chases down Giacomo Agostini’s record of 122 Grand Prix wins in all classes (he currently has 106), so John hunts Joey Dunlop’s tally of 26 TT victories. Scoring his 20th last week, he says, ‘It’s not out of my reach, but it’s not something I’ve got my head set on. I’m standing out here messing about with bikes and cars and I never dreamed I’d have 20 wins. Just to win one is special enough. I was Joey’s team-mate when he won three in a week, the 125, 250 and Superbike. In tricky conditions he was the best. I’d love to match his record then hang up my leathers. If I beat it I’d never be able to set foot on this island again.’
McGuinness is one of few riders to have a corner named after them. Joey Dunlop is one, Mike Hailwood another, Geoff Duke too. Even Ago’s Leap on Bray Hill is an unofficial moniker. It is a rare honour and some measure of the tacit esteem this man is held in. ‘When I did a treble in 2006 I found a 911 4S wide-body in Arctic Silver and I said I’m having that. It still looks £50k even though it’s probably an 18 grand car now. But I’ve just had the bumpers off it to touch in some stone chips and I had the radiators off too to smarten things up. I’m more than a bit anal about stuff. I can look like shit but my stuff’s got to be mint.’
Aside from the cars there’s the small matter of the McGuinness motorcycle collection, 38 bikes in all, and at least 100 pairs of old and not immaculate leathers. ‘I leave them all as they were when I finished with them, same as the TT bikes, covered in flies and rubber.’ His race machinery is as brutal and beautiful as you’d expect a factory HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) TT machine to be. ‘It doesn’t have data-logging, no traction control or anti-wheelie stuff. I’ve got a thumb rear brake to keep the front end down and after that it’s just the throttle connection and my arse that tell me what’s going on. Round here it’s a balance between grip and stability. If you haven’t got a stable bike you’re not going anywhere.’
And now he’s fully connected to the synaptic steering of the Atom, things get markedly faster on open roads with no limits outside of built-up areas. ‘I haven’t laughed like this in a car for ages,’ he giggles. ‘The noise is amazing. It feels like it’ll suck you through the airbox and eat you. It’s bananas!
‘It’s so light it’ll pull sixth gear down to 30mph and it fuels really cleanly. On a track it would whip the Fireblade, but on these open roads, which I know a bit, it’s there, but it’s not quicker. But I don’t think there’s anything else around for £35k that can blow your head off like this.’
He parks up again. The tyres are hot and collect roadside grit flinging it into the cockpit. He switches off and lets the hardworked engine click and tick cool. ‘I’d have titanium bolts here, here, and here,’ pointing variously to the bonnet and dash mounts. It probably needs a paddleshift although that gearbox is so good.’ Reg from Ariel assures him that paddle shift is on the way and that he can have what he likes by way of fasteners. He also tells John there’s a quicker steering rack available.
We drive back to put bikes in vans, swap gear into hire cars and call it a day. I ask him what the small Egyptian motif on the back of his helmet means. ‘Oh the little dolly? I give her a kiss before I go out. I’m not naturally superstitious – but I am at the TT. You need all the help you can get. There’s always something to catch you out here. Get complacent and it will have your pants down.’
Plainly entertained and not wanting anyone to miss out on the fun, McGuinness gently coerces Honda’s Beth to strap herself in the passenger seat for a wee jaunt up the hill. After mild protestation she obliges and the duo scream away into the afternoon. This is a familiar pattern and a reassuringly funny one too. The acceleration is blistering, the noise ridiculous and the car a fair imitation of the most radical fairground rides.
The orange machine hurtles into view again. They’re fairly travelling. McGuinness keeps it pinned until he has to brake for our turning. Both emerge in fits of laughter. ‘That was 150mph on the speedo,’ says John. ‘I couldn’t work out if that was Beth screaming or the noise of the supercharger.’
Ever-affable McGuinness was here for Honda and here for pleasure, so down-to-earth he’s almost subterranean, so skilled with high-speed machinery he’s superhuman. If this was something of a busman’s holiday, he conducted it beautifully. ‘It’s always nice to be here, but just doing this for fun is great. I can hardly breathe before a TT.’
And with that, the fastest man on The Rock is gone again.