Motorcycling: GONE! In under six seconds

IT'S a muggy summer's day in Kirkmichael - a small village which sits on the apex of a 130mph bend on the TT course.

An old boy in a worn Belstaff jacket sits on the wall outside the local bank with a radio tuned to the local Manx race commentry station glued to his ear.

The bank is on one side of the stone wall and a three-foot wide pavement on the other. Beyond that is the road where hundreds of fans expect a procession of bikes to come hurtling past at over 100 miles per hour.

The race has been delayed - the weather isn't good. Here in Kirkmichael the birds are chattering and there is a gentle hubbub of conversation.

It's a big day: Joey is up for the 26th win in a class that has become his own - the Lightweight 250 cc.

Suddenly the old boy's radio crackles with static and there is the faint echo of two strokes on the start line ten miles back.

Sitting with my legs dangling over the wall I munch on crisps, nurse a hangover and wait.

There's a drone in the distance. Thirty seconds later the yowl of a two- stroke at full chat rends the air. One person falls off the wall and bumps into the old boy with the radio. The rest of us crouch down and swear.

It's a truly shocking experience to stand four foot away from a small bike screaming like the Devil on acid and doing 120mph at the limits of its adhesion.

The call goes out: "Did anyone get the number? Was that Joey?" The old boy with the radio has been here before:

"That was Joey."

We saw Joey for no more than three seconds - a flash of purple bike and yellow helmet and a faint waft of Castrol R racing two- stroke oil after he'd gone.

The second time round we were ready. Joey heeled over in the turn using the same 6 inch strip of tarmac he'd been on for the last 20 years. Some things don't change.

He was ahead and winning. I saw Joey in his last TT winning race for a total of six seconds (at the most). I'd never seen him on the Mountain course before.

When I heard the news from Estonia on Radio 4 I shed a tear. That six seconds still makes my spine shiver.

Copyright 2001 MGN LTD
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