ISLE OF MAN
Steve Tonkin won the Junior TT in 1981, but this year he’s back on the Isle of Man with a freshly built Metisse-framed Gold Star
Words: MARK GRAHAM Photography: DAVE COLLISTER & BAUER AUTOMOTIVE
Of all the tracks in all the places in all the world, the Isle Of Man Mountain Course is the one worth knowing best. Steve Tonkin (74) still has intimate recall. “I could lay in bed and go round the whole course in my head after I’d ridden there afew times,” he says. “After three years I knew where I was and what came next.”
British 250 Champion for three years running between 1981 and 1983, Junior TT winner in 1981 on an Armstrong 250, and regular TT podium-finisher and serial top-six man between 1977 and 1983, Tonks has returned to The Island for a holiday. On a TZ350 at “It’s been 10 years since I was last here,” he says. “I had a house to build that took four years, and I prefer doing things to watching other people do stuff.” Despite living temptingly close to Mona’s Isle (near Morecambe) he’s so far been too busy building and restoring bikes to make the crossing.
This year is different. “Gerry Rowley, who works with Tri-Spark in Adelaide [Australia] is coming over – he’s riding a T140 Métisse I built and I’m on my Gold Star Métisse,” says Tonkin of his long-awaited and now fully-fledged IoM holiday plan.
Much has changed since Tonkin’s heyday, but the fundamentals of a 37.73-mile lap remain the same. Like most top riders, he enjoys some sections more than others, but treats every inch of tarmac with the utmost respect. “On the whole, I preferred riding from the start to Ramsey. It was more involving, busier than The Mountain,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, The Mountain section took some doing too, but it was less frantic. Having said that, never try and remove a visor tear-off up there. I did it once and nearly put the bike in the fence. You’re travelling that fast, but it may not seem like it.
“I used to get cracking right away. Not quite flat out, because the tyres weren’t up to temperature until Union Mills. Governor’s Bridge and Braddan you’d be steady through. But Braddan had me twice. I was leading the Senior one year on an RG500 Suzuki and the first lap was dry, but there was a ‘mist on The Mountain’ warning. I came into Braddan on lap two and it was wet – you couldn’t tell, there really should have been boards out – and the front went. There’s a big tree on the right and the bike hit it, so that was that. Then I had a gearbox seize on an F2 600 Honda. I was OK both times.
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