Much to the delight of fans Ryan Farquhar and Keith Amor have announced their return to racing, as both top riders have confirmed their entries into the 2014 Isle of Man TT under Farquhar’s KMR Kawasaki banner. This means the rivals will now race as teammates on their 650cc Kawasaki ER6 Lightweight class race bikes, as the tackle the three-lap BikeSocial.co.uk Lightweight TT Race.
Proper road racing is a dangerous game, as the spectacle unfolds upon all of the uncertainty that comes with public roads, rather than the controlled environment of a proper closed-course racing circuit.
The competitors you find at events like the Irish road races, the Isle of Man TT, or the Macau Grand Prix are a unique breed to be doing what they do, where they do it; and if you talk to many of them, the prospect of an untimely ending is something that has already been factored into the cost of what that choose to do.
No one goes looking for an early death, of course, but the realities of the situation are ever-present. Just last year, Luis Carreira lost his life while qualifying at the Macau GP, a reminder of how dangerous the armco-laced Guia race track can be for motorcyclists.
Thankfully the 2013 Macau Grand Prix was without major incident, but we did have a close-call on the first lap between Horst Saiger and Marc Fissette. The event’s photographers captured the contact and subsequent crashes with their cameras, giving us a frame-by-frame perspective into what was thankfully just a bad day at the office for these two riders.
With the news that Michael Dunlop failed to reach an agreement with Honda Europe, and likely would be sitting out the 2014 road racing season, Honda TT Legends has announced its signing of Conor Cummins in Dunlop’s stead. Accordingly, the well-regarded Manx rider will form a two-man team with Mr. Snaefell himself, John McGuinness.
Cummins and McGuinness will race for the Honda TT Legends team at the 2014 Isle of Man TT and North West 200 road racing events. Both McGuinness and Cummins will cover the Superbike and Senior races at the TT, while Cummins will race for the team in the Superstock class as well.
After failing to secure a deal that he was satisfied with, Michael Dunlop has announced that he will not be racing during the 2014 season. The news comes just weeks after the Honda TT Legends squad released Dunlop, after the two parties failed to agree on a contract after several offers from Honda Europe had been made.
The talk of the 2013 Isle of Man TT, Michael Dunlop had a breakout performance this season, which also saw him competing in the FIM Endurance World Championship for the Honda TT Legends crew. Replacing John McGuinness at the Le Mans 24-Hour endurance race, and besting Mr. McPint in the solo classes at the TT, it seemed like Dunlop’s coming of age had arrived.
Unfortunately with no ride in sight for the 2014 season, it would seem Dunlop’s momentum is about to grind to a halt.
What? You mean the 2013 Macau GP wasn’t on your television, despite the fact you get like a billion channels nowadays? And one flying-lap is simply not enough to ease your motolust?
Don’t worry, if you missed the road racing action this weekend in China’s Special Administrative Region, we’ve got your back. Someone in China has broken the Great Firewall, and uploaded the race to YouTube.
The racing is fierce on this nearly four-mile long circuit, and the fairytale ending is worth the price of admission alone. Enjoy over an hour of racing coverage.
The Macau GP is just nuts, let’s just get that thought out and up front. A proper road race on, you know, the road…it boggles the mind to think that competitors at Macau share the circuit’s near four-mile course length with each other, unlike the Isle of Man TT’s single-rider time trial format.
This of course means riders are angling for apexes with each other, all the while there is virtually no run-off to be seen. No margin for error, triple-digit speeds, and 200+ horsepower machines — like we said, the Macau GP is just nuts.
Don’t just take our word for it, have a look for yourself with this excellent on-board footage from eighth-place finisher Didier Grams and his gyros-stablized camera. It’s epic to watch the armco go flying by while this talented German rider does his thing.
Defying the odds against him, Ian Hutchinson has won the 2013 Macau GP, beating fierce competitor Michael Rutter in the shortened race. Hutchinson took the lead from Rutter on the fourth lap of fifteen, though a crash on the eleventh lap by Dean Harrison brought the Macau GP to an early end.
Thankfully Harrison was unhurt by the crash, though his bike was in the middle of the course, and forced race officials to red flag the race. Despite the premature ending, there can be no question that it was Hutchinson’s day, as the man from Bingley had a solid two-second gap over Rutter.
Coming off an eighteen month recovery period, Hutchinson’s win reconfirms the young Yorkshireman as a true talent in road racing, with today’s Macau GP win adding another impressive entry on Hutchinson’s already illustrious resumé, which includes a clean sweep of the 2010 Isle of Man TT’s five solo-class races.
“It’s probably one of the most special wins I’ve ever had with what’s gone on in the last few years, but hopefully now I can move on to carrying on back where I left off three years ago,” said Hutchinson after the race.
The Macau GP is this weekend, and it is already shaping up to be a great event after today’s qualifying. Normally this is a race that Michael Rutter dominates (the Brit has eight Macau GP race wins to his name), but this year sees a new name on the leaderboard at the conclusion of the two qualifying sessions: Ian Hutchinson.
The only man to ever win all five solo races at the Isle of Man TT, Hutchinson was all the talk in 2010, but the Bingly man has seen his last two seasons hampered with tough recoveries from leg injuries.
Though finally healthy, many were beginning to wonder if Hutchy had lost his pace on a motorbike — his performance today on the Milwaukee Yamaha YZF-R1 has ended that talk though.
When it comes to turning the contract season into as arduous of a process as possible, the MotoGP Championship is king. The silly season seems to stretch from Qatar to Valencia, and we’re sure that if we checked at the time of this posting, we could find some intrigue for contracts in 2016. Oy vey.
That’s not how Guy Martin rolls though. If you didn’t know that the truck mechanic, and sometimes TT racer, beats to the sound of his own drum, well…then you probably didn’t know jack about the man from Lincolnshire to begin with.
It seems Martin is just starting to get wind of this whole internet thing, and found out that people were talking about him on it. This lead to his revelation that people were also talking about where he was racing for the 2014 season, and that just did not sit well with Mr. Martin.
Putting rumors to a dead-stop, Guy took matters into his own hands. Long story short, he’s with the TAS Suzuki boys (and girls) for next season, and believes he’ll be on the necessary package to find his elusive first Isle of Man TT race win.
If you don’t speak mouth-full-of-marbles, you might have to watch the video after the jump more than once — it might be the best contract announcement we’ve ever seen.
Monster Energy doesn’t really have a reputation for being understated, so we should probably cut them some slack when “The World’s Most Awesome Road Race” is the title of the their four-and-half-minute tribute to the Isle of Man TT. After all if you have seen TT in person, you will probably agree with Monster’s assessment. As the kids say, it’s cray.
The title sponsor for the two Supersport races, and the personal sponsor to a number of riders, namely the King himself John McGuinness, Monster Energy is a great supporter of this iconic road race, and has been doing its part to help cross-polinate athletes with the Manx race, so it’s good to see them promoting the sport even further with videos like this.
If you are like us and going through a bit of Isle of Man TT withdrawal, here is a little something more to help you ease those pangs. A video of the “most awesome” road race is after the jump.
The Isle of Man TT is widely acknowledged as the most demanding motorcycle road race on earth for both rider and machine. For a motorsport photographer the 37.75 mile course offers a wealth of opportunities as well as a unique challenge.
The opportunities are obvious: stunning scenery, spectacular jumps and spectators literally within arms-reach of the riders as they blast through towns and villages.
It goes without saying that capturing a sharp image of a 200bhp motorcycle can be tricky even when they are not moving particularly quickly. In my opinion, the difficulty level at the TT is greater due to the sheer speed the bikes are travelling at.
The key to successfully photographing the TT has nothing to do with technical ability or gear, it is, as with most things in life, down to experience – although a bit of location planning and local knowledge doesn’t hurt either.