I’D JUST LEFT the pits after the fuel stop. Head down, wrestling the 210-horsepower Honda Fireblade through the outskirts of Douglas, the Manx capital, and out onto another 38-mile lap of the island. One of my mechanics, Cammy, had told me I was in the lead, but only by a second. I could hear a difference in his voice. He’s normally as calm as if he was reading a shopping list, but there was an edge this time. He knew we could win.
It was the start of the third lap of the 2010 Isle of Man Senior TT, the last race of the fortnight, the race I have been desperate to win since 2004, and the last chance to get a TT win for another year. I was pushing hard.
I had already missed out on a win by three seconds that week. Three seconds in a race held over 150 miles. A race that lasts one hour and 12 minutes, or 4,300 seconds. That means the winning margin was 0.21 per cent. It’s obvious that every second counts in modern real road racing.
Down Bray Hill, with a full tank of fuel and a new rear tyre. The bike goes from nearly bone dry to brim full, and the extra 24 litres of unleaded always makes a difference to the handling, but I know how to deal with it.
Then, three miles from the pits, comes Ballagarey. This is the kind of corner that keeps me racing on the roads. It’s a proper man’s corner. You go through the right-hander at 170 mph or more, leant right over, eyes fixed as far down the road as it’s possible to see, which isn’t very far. Like so many corners at the Isle of Man, and most of the other circuits I specialise at, it’s blind. I can’t see the exit of the corner when I fully commit to the entry.
I’d been through Ballagarey 100 times flat-out, but this time something happened. This time the front end tucked, lost grip and started sliding. It’s the beginning of a crash. That’s not unusual. I’m saving slides regularly when I’m pushing for wins. Through the fastest corners the bike is always on the edge of crashing, just gripping enough to keep on going in the right direction. Go slightly too fast and the tyre shouts, ‘Enough!’ Go slightly too slow and you’re no longer in the hunt for wins.
As the front tyre carried on skidding across the top of the road, I tried to save the slide. I thought, ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve got it …’ I can sometimes get away with front-end tucks, when the bike is leant so far over that the front tyre eventually loses grip and begins to slide. You can save them on your knee, or give it a bit of throttle and it’ll come back to you. One thing’s for sure, you don’t do anything major, like grabbing a handful of brake, and you don’t panic because that’s when you come off.
I went through all that thought process, as the bike was steadily skating, increasingly out of control towards the Manx stone wall that lines the outside of this corner. Then the thought ‘Game over’ entered my head. At those speeds, on a corner like that, you’re not jumping off the bike, just letting it go. I was leant over as far as a Honda CBR1000RR will lean, and a little bit more. I released my grip on the bars of the bike and slid down the road. I didn’t think, ‘This is going to hurt,’ – just, ‘Whatever will be, will be.’