This years Isle of Man TT is coming up shortly and the most famous Road Race on the calender in Northern Ireland, The North-West 200 was held recently.
I am not particularly into motorbikes but these events always impress me when I see them, if only for the fact that they still take place in the 21st century as they seem a throwback to an earlier, less safety-concious, era.
The road-racing calender is major part of the history and culture of Northern Ireland, it was one of the few sports that has historically been fairly apolitical and people like Joey Dunlop seem to be admired by the vast majority of the population.
An almost 38 mile long lap over public roads on the Isle of Man, the main difference between that and the NW200 (for example) is that the riders set off singly against the clock where in the NW200 they are racing directly against each other in a pack.
I haven’t linked to a youtube video because I’m not sure if they are in copyright or not, but a quick search will bring up many examples which are worth a watch.
North-West 200
This is onboard footage from a practice lap of the circuit, it doesn’t appear to be copyrighted but if so please delete.
It gives a good idea of the speeds the riders are doing, this year Martin Jessopp set a top speed of 208 mph. :eek:
As I said above, the sport is very well known here but I was wondering how well known it is in America? (asking as this is a US based forum)
We don’t even get TV coverage over here, so pretty much unknown. We are lucky to get MotoGP and WSBK (end of the dial - cable/satellite only channel), and even those aren’t very popular.
One of the HD only channels has shown the Isle Of Man in the near past, though I don’t know if it was shown live or same day tape delayed. I know when I came across it I was flipping through the channels while visiting my sister’s house sometime last year. I don’t get whatever channel it was that was showing it.
At one time Speed (the USA’s primary motorsport channel) did carry the TT, but not for a few years at least.
A good film called “TT - Closer To The Edge” about the TT came out last year, check it out if you can find it. Although North Americans might need subtitles for Guy Martin’s accent. The guys on the superbikes are bonkers, but the truely mad ones are the sidecar guys!
In the past (and this is probably decades ago), I remember coverage (probably on ABC) of a motorbike race held at Daytona Speedway (the same track where the NASCAR race is held) – the bikes used the road oval for the most part, but there was a section built in the infield in between turns 2 and 3, IIRC, which had sharper turns and shorter straightaways. It was pretty cool to watch.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that there’s still such races here in the states, but it’s the kind of sport that gets covered here on ESPN2 (a secondary cable sports channel) at 2 a.m., or something like that.
The only motorsports that get any real coverage here are NASCAR auto racing, and (to a far lesser degree) IndyCar racing (open-wheel); anything else (motorcycles, drag racing, powerboats, etc.) has very niche appeal, and very limited coverage. Even F1 auto racing, which is huge in Europe and many other parts of the world, is virtually invisible here.
Daytona has a “Bike Week” after the Daytona 500 which includes a 200 mile race on the Daytona road course (which includes parts of the oval) sanctioned by the AMA. Speed shows that on TV nowadays, I think. They also have a motocross event in the infield that week as well.
Also, ESPN2 used to be the weird sports outlet for ESPN, but nowadays just seems like an overflow destination for the same stuff they show on plain old ESPN. Luckily if you pay enough to your cable or satellite provider there are about 15 different channels that show the stuff espn2 made its old “lowercase” name on.
In this day and age I’d be very surprised if there are similar races in America, even here (Northern Ireland) its a bit of an historical anomoly. Back in the day holding motorsport races on public roads was banned in England and the rest of the UK but not in Northern Ireland (not sure about the status of Wales, they do hold rally events there).
The Health and Safety people and lawyers must go into spasms of shock at the very thought of it…it’s an extremely dangerous sport (as you can imagine), unfortunately another rider, Mark Buckley, lost his life at this years NW200 event. They try to make it as safe as possible but the nature of the sport means its inherently dangerous.
There are plenty of motorbike races held in America (I have a friend in California who competes in them) but those are on purpose-built circuits not on closed public roads. As I said in my OP the whole sport is something of an anachronism in the modern world which is part of the reason I was wondering if it was known at all in America.
Thanks, I’ve ordered that from Amazon, there appears to be something of a renaissance in regards to movies and interest in motorsport, witness the international success of the movie about Senna and there is a movie about the Lauda/Hunt F1 championship contest coming out soon as well.
Just to be clear, when I said, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that there’s still such races here in the states”, I was referring to high-speed motorcycle racing in general, not specifically to motorcycle races held on public roads, like the TT.
Of course there is still high speed, motorcycle road racing (on purpose built tracks) here in the US. In addition to the aforementioned Daytona 200, MotoGP holds two races here (Laguna Seca and Indy), WSBK 1 (Miller Motorsports Park, Utah) and the AMA which holds approx 10 such events. Plus there are many levels of club and semi-pro racing on local tracks.
There’s an interesting (to me anyway) American-British language difference popping up here. Since NASCAR is the big thing in the US ‘road racing’ means ‘not oval’ and refers to purpose-build race circuits that have the audacity to include right-hand turns where in the UK it means ‘public roads temporarily closed to traffic’.
We don’t really use the term “road racing”, especially if you are talking to anyone that knows what you are talking about. But if someone is completely in the dark, you may call it “road racing” or “on a road course” to distinguish between Oval racing (and perhaps even moto cross or flat track)
It really is. The only motorsport that has any true widespread following in the US is NASCAR auto racing. A few decades ago, Indy Car racing held that position, but political in-fighting within that sport damaged its visibility severely, just at the time when NASCAR began to grow its appeal beyond its roots in the southeastern U.S. Indy Cars still have some visibility (particularly around the Indianapolis 500 race, which is still one of the biggest motorsport events in the U.S.), but they’re generally a far distant second to NASCAR now. It certainly doesn’t help Indy Cars that when they do manage to get a driver who generates some fan interest (e.g., Danica Patrick), said driver immediately gets wooed to jump to NASCAR.
At least in the past 30-40 years, motorcycle racing of any stripe has had a relatively small following, certainly much smaller than either NASCAR or Indy. I don’t know enough about the current status of the smaller motorsports to be able to tell you how high-speed motorcycle racing compares in interest to, say, powerboats, drag racing, or BMX, but I’d suspect that all of those are down there in the “small niche following” category.
But oddly, Americans have had a much bigger impact on international level motorcycle racing than auto racing. Mario Andretti remains the last American of any lasting consequence in F1, while Eddie Lawson, Kenny Roberts, Wayne Rainey, Freddie Spencer all won multiple times in the top level class and Kevin Schwantz, Kenny Roberts Jr., and Nicky Hayden have managed a single top level championship… all since Mario won his world title back in 1978.
Yes, I’ll know to be more specific in future, although in most real-life conversations with my American comrades I have enough trouble convincing them that in some types of motorsport the drivers/riders are allowed to turn right…(the whole NASCAR dominance thing)
I used to be a fan of F1 but lost interest in recent years after they smothered the sport in needless rules and forgot that the drivers are supposed to be racing not following each other in some sort of time trial.
The guys on the superbikes are bonkers, but the truely mad ones are the 
where in the UK it means ‘public roads temporarily closed to traffic’.
(the whole NASCAR dominance thing)