Beyond the Blade – TT Special 2025 Part 1
37 and three quarter miles,
close to 300 corners. This is a racetrack like no
other racetrack in the world. One small mistake could cost you
everything but the perfect lap puts your name in the history books, and
that’s precisely what Honda did last year with Dean Harrison finishing on
the podium, John McGuinness TT legend MBE, set off number one and still
showed those young bucks how it’s done. But for 2025, podiums are not enough. Honda are chasing race wins. This is the Isle of Man TT
and this is Beyond the Blade. BSB is over a weekend and
planning 11 events in a year. TT is over here three weekends. And months and months of planning. 14 mechanics and everything here, and
the whole idea with this year is to have more rather than less because
of having the two riders, John on Superbike, Superstock, Dean then on
Supersport, Superstock, Superbike. We’ve got a 15 meter marquee set up, which
is a a great facility for us to have here. So we’ve got the hospitality crew here
that work with us throughout BSB, so they’re looking after our Catering
requirements, if you like, daily. They do a great job, whether it’s
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and look at all the hours of change we’ve had. So they’ve had to be fluid and
flexible with what they’re doing. So that side of it’s worked really well. We’ve got two arctic trailers here
with all the parts, equipment and bikes, uh, and ancillary parts and
tools and everything that we need. And then we’ve got crew bus, cars, vans,
and team living in two, three houses We’ve struggled a little
bit with consistency. So normally if the weather’s flowing,
obviously track gets better and better and better lap times come
down and we just end up rolling. It’s been a struggle to, to have
consistency, so we end up making progress and then next thing we have bad weather
again, rain, and then we have to like have a bit of a reset and, and go again and. For John, I think he’s probably
found it more difficult than Dean. So when we’ve been sent out and damp
patches here, damp patches there. Some, you know, elements of sort of
confidence have just whittled away a little bit for for John, expectations
are always gonna be at the sharp end, I think if we can go faster than he is
ever gone before, or, you know, the, the overall race distant, uh, race time. Could be shortened. It’s, it’s a win really for John. We just had the joys of seeing you in
your underpants and you’ve still got the coin mark from your look Penny. Yeah. Yeah. It was queen face down on
my left thigh inside thigh. When I took my lever up, it, it, it went
flying across the, uh, the motorhome floor and picked it back up again. But there’s a, there is a, a,
like a bronze, uh, I’ll show you. I whip me keck’s down. Doesn’t matter does it nothing to
see here lads, but I think, yeah, there, so that’s where she ended up. The old, uh, the boss. So I have a voodoo doll in
the back of my helmet. Always had the voodoo doll since 1999,
so I’ll just give that a little kiss. I always wear daddy socks. There you go. Those are the socks head on for the race. Simply the best Dad could not ride
or race without daddy socks on. They’re a bit smelly. But, uh, yeah, daddy socks, voodoo
doll, penny, hug with the misses, hug with the kids ,bosh, get going. I haven’t got many years racing at the
TT, but the years that I’ve got left, I want it to be nice and sunny and self. Selfishly I want it to be right. So I’m getting, I was getting. •••••• off, but leathers on
leathers off a few times. Up to start line and
wheel back down again. Um, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t
ride my bike from Tuesday to Friday. You know, that’s not normally what
happens, you know, we know 600, so I’ve been, you know, I’ve gone a bit rusty. I’ve been, uh, I hadn’t
forgotten how to ride a bike. Well, I had forgotten. I’d forgotten a bit really? Then, you know, that first superstock race
was pretty, it was P 45 material that. I needed a kick in the •••• piece for
that one, but then that one was, was, was much more, uh, positive and strong
and, and I found it a bit easier. You know, I was smiling
and, and really enjoyed it. So, and that’s what I go racing for. I enjoy it From the first time I did me first TT it’s
never changed you straight into a race. So when you don’t know any different. You just get on with it, don’t you? It’s not till something’s ch you
know, which is fine by me ’cause that’s just how it’s always been. And this year for me, I
was the living over here. It was just like a normal,
it’s a normal road like it is any other time of the year. But when there’s no recticel’s up it, you
don’t really look at it as a racetrack. And then they put the recticel’s up a
month or so before the TT, then it sort of hits home that you almost gets the,
the butterflies growing in the stomach, like the start line a little bit that
you’re driving down the road thinking. We’re coming. It’s coming real soon. We’re gonna be coming down here. So I think that’s the, the psyching
yourself up, the mental side of it. You’ve just got to know that you’ve got
to be prepared that once you get the tap on the shoulder or the little green light
comes on, or the raise of the flag, you’ve just got to know, you’ve just got to go. And now’s the time to perform. The, the conditions wasn’t the best. The every time some rubber got laid
down, just rain and wash it away. Then it’d rain, then it wash it away. And that’s, that’s, but that again, that’s
the uniqueness of the TT because, you know, once it rains, it washes the rubber
off, the tracks gets opened up again. And there’s people driving down the
shop to go pick some pint of milk up, but that’s what makes this event
unique and special in its own ways, the sense of achievement, was big for me
because it wasn’t just a fact of, do you know like sometimes you’ll win a race and
someone like somebody will break down. You won that race because that the
Superstock race, nobody broke down. Everyone was in the race. Everyone was trying, everyone was
you know, doing what they could. At the time, there were no, oh,
well you won because of this. You won cause that. Well, we set the fastest lap of the
week with the fastest ever metzeler tire lap around the island on TT
course, and we won the race it were a fair and square race win. That’s what makes it special. And on that day we came out on top
and that’s what makes that win. stand out for me.
In the latest Beyond the Blade episode, the first of two parts, we return to the racing birthplace of Honda to witness the Honda Racing team in action at the 2025 Isle of Man TT Races. For Dean Harrison, a remarkable fortnight of racing culminated in a trophy cabinet brimming with silverware following double victories in the Superstock category, two second-place finishes in Supersport, and a further podium finish (3rd) on his Superbike, thus achieving an impressive 100% podium success rate with five trips to the rostrum. His dominant return to the top step of the podium, his first win since 2019, also marked Honda Racing’s first victory in ten years at the event. Alongside him in the garage, Honda stalwart and road racing royalty John McGuinness MBE notched up race start 114 and yet more 130mph+ laps at the venue with which his history is intertwined. Join us in this two part special as we go behind the scenes of the most iconic motorcycle race in the world. This is Beyond the Blade, and this is the first part of two ‘Isle of Man TT Special Part 1’, the next of which will be coming soon.
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