AGV Backmarker: Okay, maybe the results weren’t exactly electrifying. They were still impressive

The TTXGP race—one lap of the famed 37.73-mile “Mountain Course” on the Isle of Man—came off on the last day of the TT fortnight. I’ve been getting interesting reports from my friends who live on the island, teams competing in the event, and fellow journalists covering it.

Going into the inaugural TTXGP, there was more than a little skepticism from the locals. Partly, this reflects the fact that a substantial minority of people living on the island detest the disruption to their otherwise quiet idyll, and thus view any addition to the TT schedule with antipathy. And, the organizer is of East Indian descent, and based in London. More than half the people living on the Isle of Man are “from away,” but the pool of volunteers who actually make the TT happen is skewed toward native Manxmen (and women) who tend to be a bit xenophobic.

I often got the impression that the official TT press releases pointedly ignored the electric machines. The course marshals complained about the (minimal) added practice sessions, and the event organizers made things a bit more difficult for entrants when they summarily announced that riders for the zero-emissions race had to be drawn from the pool of riders already competing in one of the conventional classes. The rationale for this was that there was so little practice time for the TTXGP entries that they wouldn’t have time to learn the course.

Okay, that makes some sense, but I was stunned when Mick Grant was told he wouldn’t be allowed to ride one team’s bike. Grant’s a TT legend (seven wins, sixteen podium appearances, at least one outright lap record, etc.) He’s not raced in the TT for years, but is still very familiar with the course, since until recently he made an informal business of coaching newcomers on the open roads. He can, I am sure, lap at electric-bike speeds in his sleep, so denying him a license smacked of rock-peeing by someone in the organization.

Perhaps ironically, making all the TTXGP teams draw from the pool of “real” TT racers helped to popularize the event with the hard-core fans and volunteers, because it turned out that the riders who were recruited to the TTXGP were genuinely enthusiastic about the bikes and the race, and that enthusiasm proved to be infectious. By the time the race came off, most of the media, fans, and volunteers were converts.

It’s a moot point. The raison d’être of the TT is still to promote the Isle of Man. Frankly, the island hardly benefits from exposure in UK and Euro motorcycle magazines, where every reader’s already familiar with the place and event. When the local government realizes just how much extra exposure the TTXGP race generated—in magazines and newspapers, on websites and TV programs that would never cover the conventional bike races—the politicians will almost certainly tell the TT organizers, “Get used to it! The TTXGP is here to stay.”

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