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Cresting hills at 200 miles an hour is no easy task, especially with both wheels off the ground and 200-horsepower buzzing underneath, but Isle of Man TT winner Gary Johnson, is one of the best. Around a single lap of a road circuit – there are few who can match his raw speed.
Only a thin layer of leather, a Bell racing helmet, and some serious mental grit separate the body from the tarmac. Johnson sat down with us to share a racer’s perspective on three of the North Atlantic’s premier road racing events: the North West 200, the Ulster Grand Prix, and the Isle of Man TT. These are his words.
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North West 200
"The North West is just 200-miles-an-hour, straight-line stuff, but it isn't all straight-line, it's kinked, and there's a wall of 18 people going wheel to wheel. You can't get that anywhere else, it's just unreal. At the last corner, you come out in first gear, then work up into the top gear, obviously, and then you're flat-out – on a big bike at least – for 56 seconds."
Hit the rev limiter, and keep pinning it.
"That's pretty serious. You've hit top of the rev range, it's bouncing off the rev-limiter, and you get a slipstream that pulls you even quicker. That's just mental. You've got the biggest grin on your face because you're so engrossed in the competition you don't think anything else is going on."
Everyone likes a nice day off.
"They get you there two days early so you go out for a day's practice, then you get a day off. I was like, 'Why did you give us a day off?' You can do your practice, everyone goes out and gets pissed, spends all day recovering, then has another go at it. It's Ireland, [laughs] they all love drinking. It's a brilliant time."
Isle of Man TT
"Two weeks later it's the TT. It's a 40-mile course and you're just belting around it, flat out for most of the time. You're doing an average of 130mph, and then you're just like 'this is crazy'. You try to learn the course and concentration levels are huge; the amount you have to put in at that course to do it and keep the speed – it's mental. You just can't do any better than this. It's everybody's favorite."
Coming face to face with reality.
"But it is petrifying, in a way, you're wheel-to-wheel and you think 'If one guy next to me makes a mistake, 15 of us are going to plow right into him doing 200mph. Well, ain't gonna' see Christmas are we? [Laughs] That's where you're like, 'Jesus, this is amazing.'"
Ulser Grand Prix
"A month later you go to the Ulster Grand Prix, and it's a little bit of a mix between the two. It's a mass start. You're flyin' round it, it's only eight miles long, with average speeds at 133mph, so it's even quicker than the TT. It's not so straight, though; it's like a big oval. There's parts where you're one, two, or more abreast and you're slipstreaming someone."
Life at 200mph
"The TT is the ultimate; let's not drag away from that. It's the ultimate course and distance, but the other two have special things about them that you don't get anywhere else in the world – apart from locking you up, if you try to do it."
