TT Day 0 - The Crossing

Back home from travel for work at 21h00 last night to meet my brother Nic and Mom and a delicious home-cooked meal. We then started organizing the mountain of tools, spares, gear, equipment needed for the campaign.

Asleep at 01h00 for a few hours sleep then up again at 05h00 to start packing. Lists, packing, loading, checking, last minutes bits and a few hours later we're heading up to Heysham. Roadworks, broken-down cars, traffic jams and many downpours... it was slower going than I'd hoped. Keen not to repeat my many IOM ferry-missing episodes, we left early enough to still get to the ferry port two hours before departure.

They got us loaded quickly, we found our seats and within half an hour I was asleep. I woke half-way through the journey to sunshine glinting off the Irish Sea. I continued the Speed therapy tradition for hand-cutting my "92" race number for the Triumph. Soon enough and we were docking in Douglas harbor.

Nic meets Michael Dunlop

We are staying with our uber-hosts Brett and Julie-Ann again this year. Unfortunately for us, their garage has now been turned into a successful fitness studio. Luckily Kevan (pit crew last year) managed to find a garage to rent for the fortnight just 5 minutes away. We headed to Glenda and Dave's to unload the bikes, gear and setup the workshop for the fortnight.

Our IOM garage from previous years

A few hours later and we had everything unpacked, setup, the motorway muck from the poor-weather journey up cleaned off the bikes and the wheels off for fitting new tyres in the morning. We headed to Brett's on Bray hill for some scran and get settled in for the night.

A bit weird... feels like another Manx GP/Classic TT so far. Looking forward to getting up to the paddock tomorrow to see the difference and experience the TT. Tomorrow is busy... new tyres, finish off prepping the KMR, skrootineering and hopefully out for a few laps tomorrow evening. Be great to get a lap or two under the belt.

IOM 2013 - Day 0 - A Good Start

My brother Nic arrived on Thursday and help with finishing off the SP3... spent the evening prepping the race bikes, having a few beers, chewing the fat and catching up. Awesome.

Some sticker-work...

Nic getting ready to load the old Duke in 'transport' trim

Friday morning we got organised and packing. Took a break in the wet weather to load the bikes and pack the Chevy to the rafters. Great to have an extra pair of hands helping out :-).

By 13:30 we were on the road north to Liverpool. Stuck in the usual motorway traffic, the 2.5 hour journey took 4 hours... but made it in good time to board the sea-cat ferry and get on our way. No dramas or missed ferries... a good start to the fortnight's racing!

Packed to the rafters...

Under all the spares, tools, equipment and gear is a Classic Formula 1 Ducati race bike

Tomorrow will be the usual signing-on, briefings, last-minute prep (need to get a set of tyres fitted to the Ducati), first skrootineering and finally first practice (untimed). Am so looking forward to heading down Bray Hill... 50 weeks wait is too long!

The Sultan of Swing

Cheerio mainland...