WORDS: DANGEROUS BRUCE IMAGES: JAMES WRIGHT - DOUBLE RED / HONDA / FB ARCHIVE
It was that interminable question thrown to every school leaver in my class: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I’m not going to pretend I can remember what myself or anyone else retorted, but among all the obligatory vocations of doctors, footballers, hairdressers and porn stars – there was always one – I know with certainty no one stood tall and said they wanted to be a TT racer. It’s not that none of us had ever heard of the world’s greatest road race, but it was considered the reserve of others: an unachievable feat on a par with becoming an astronaut or banging Keira Knightley down the local park.
But in someone else’s school there was a child a little looser than the norm, who probably had scabbed knees, countless scars and had all the chicks stood around their batteredlooking moped. They knew what they wanted to do when they grew up, and it had naff all to do with classrooms or curriculums – that kid wanted to race the TT.