Bishopscourt to Ballacrye

Competitor Guide with Steve Hislop

After Rhencullen you're in top gear down towards Bishopscourt and you've got to use the road to your advantage, with all the little kinks on the way to Alpine Cottage. You've got to be in the right place and you just back shift a gear before Alpine, just at the little rise. Joey did it, I do it, but the likes of Phillip McCallen just rolls it in top through there and so do quite a few lads - but I come back to 5th. It's weird because what happens is, you hook back to 5th, and then almost instantly nail it and hook back to top. It keeps the revs up and keeps the front end unloaded and it's so much smoother going through Alpine.

In 1993, when I wasn't actually racing, I watched there one practice night. Some of the lads that were hooking back and driving it going in and on the way towards Ballaugh carrying a lot of speed. The likes of Joey, smooth as a die, whereas others had loaded up their bikes and were all wobbly and you could definitely hear the exhaust note a lower tone. As I say, all the way from Rhencullen to Ballaugh Bridge is just flat out. You hook back a little bit, but it's just for a split second. Those are the places where you can make up a lot of time. It's flat out to Ballaugh, hard braking. You basically treat it like a short-circuit hairpin, hard braking 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd and you're over. I try to slow the bike down and just pop over. I land on the front wheel at a minimal height which suits me. Nick Jefferies has a classic motorcross jumping style - I'm always frightened of landing and breaking the chain - I've seen it happen to Trevor Nation once on the Norton. I always think if you land smoothly on the front and get on the gas again, you carry more speed out towards Ballacriy because that is essential. Out of the village over the ripples, keep it driving on, round the right, past Gwen and on towards Ballacriy.

I always give Gwen a wee kick, or a little wiggle of the foot or something, because you're hanging on too much to wave at her but she's always waving! The lady in white! She just lives for motorcycling. She loves motorbikes and she loves all the riders, she must be 60 or 70. She's out marshalling for every morning and evening practice. She always wears a white coat -she's world famous is Gwen....The lady in white.... Even back to the days of Agostini. If you're ever up there during TT week or Manx Grand Prix week and you're going past, you'll see loads of riders vans parked on the kerb. She'll have banners up and flags on her house and it is an open house basically. People like Bob Heath that have known her for years, they always pop in, cup of tea, cake - oh she's famous! She's one of the very few women that are allowed to the Manx Grand Prix dinner, you know how it's a "men only" thing, Gwen is always there. (Hizzy's tribute to the stalwart of road racing in the Isle of Man was written in the mid-1990s. Sadly, Gwen Crellin, known as the Lady in White to thousands of riders and fans, died in 2006.)

Anyway, your hanging on like hell there and then out towards Ballacriy. It's a fair old jump there but if you just happen to hit the jump at a little bit of a funny angle, the back end starts to come round in the end - even in some of the video shots I've seen some of the guys with serious wobbles there. You're carrying a lot of speed through there, you're almost airborne. On a big bike I would say 150 to160mph - the whole bike is airborne. It can tend to jump a little bit squint sometimes. I've broken screens there before, just with a whip and you might just touch it with your helmet and take a chunk of screen out - it's quite a nasty bump there. Just beyond there you keep as fast as it will go towards the start of Quarry Bends.