DIY TT RACER

Gary Johnson is taking it upon himself to build his TT Superstock & Superbike, in his house. The madman…

WORDS: BENJAMIN J KUBAS - CRONIN PICS: AS DESIGN

HOME TT BUILD

“If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing yourself” – said somebody with far too much time (and probably money) on their hands, sometime, somewhere. For the 2017 TT, Gary Johnson is taking this approach himself, eschewing joining an established squad for the Isle of Man’s main events, and instead building both bikes for Superstock and Superbike – in his house. When we say house, we of course mean lounge, conservatory, kitchen, or wherever he has a spare square inch of space.

So, what on earth possessed him to take it all upon himself? What goes in to building TT racers exactly, and why do it in his home, hmm, Gary, do tell?

“I don’t know, because it’s destroying me right now”, said Gary, “the pressure is getting far too great, especially with people not delivering goods on time and so on. Using a new model means waiting for stuff, being pissed off, and as I’m not factory supported aside from the help from friends and good people in the industry, it’s all on me, which is rendering me pretty useless and there’s less than six weeks to go until the TT! I’m having to lean on people, my dad has just taken a bike over to Maxton suspension for example, then there’s all the organising, the logistics, the boardings, the colours, it’s becoming a nightmare. If my bikes were sat ready everything else would be so much easier, but we’re working through it, we’ll keep plodding on!”

Okay then! You’ve chosen the new Suzuki GSX-R1000 for both classes, so, why at home and why Suzuki?

“I’m doing this at home as we were going to be working long days and nights. My garage is taken up, like a lot of garages, with a load of crap. Now my up and downstairs bedrooms are both storage and the lounge and conservatory is perfect, so bought some flooring and at least we’d have somewhere comfy to work in rather than freezing our nuts off in the garage.