The famed and feared Isle of Man TT race is going on as we speak over on the tiny island off the coast of Ireland. It is one of the foremost motorcycle racing events in the world it is brings some of the meanest, bravest, and flat out ballsiest riders in the world to play. The race is also notoriously deadly, having claimed the lives of two riders already in 2014 and the limbs of a few more. That being said, what is life without risk? The men who died showed up with the intention of competing in the race for a victory. These are not a couple of rubes that just fell off the turnip truck. While we’re saddened to hear of their passing, they knew they were in the deep end of the pool and disaster was one wrong apex away. Sadly both men found out how true those words actually were.
This is a four minute long video from this year’s event (which is on-going as we mentioned) and it is filled with various slow motion clips of bikes at speed, bikes cornering, and in one case at the end of the video, a bike crashing from an on-board camera perspective. That last shot is incredible and scary. While all of these riders are atop machines that achieve mind blowing speeds, it is the sidecar racers and particularly the people laying/sitting on the sidecar that really get our attention. At least the guy driving the bike has some handlebars to hang onto! All of these brave racers have our respect and we know the course has theirs. With five deaths over the last four years this is one of the final remaining motorsports events in the world that has the same ethos as racers did 50+ years ago here in the USA. The event could not happen anywhere else with the attitude that it does and we hope it never changes. This slow motion video is incredible.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO WATCH FOUR MINUTES OF AWESOME FROM THE 2014 ISLE OF MAN TT –
Balls of whatever the newest most valuable metal is. Outstanding stuff.
The head shake is cool to see in slow mo.