Honda adapt to win at TT
[ RACING ] This 2023 factory Fireblade will be ridden at the TT by two men: one with 105 TT starts, and one with just five…
In 2006 a nine-year-old Nathan Harrison was, by his own admission, a TT pest. Born and raised on the Isle of Man, he spent hours trotting round the TT paddock asking riders for signed posters. And the man he pestered most was John Mcguinness, who is now his factory Honda team-mate.
‘It’s surreal,’ Nathan tells Bike. ‘I’ve still got signed posters and pictures of me and John from those days, when he was dominating on the HM Plant Honda. And now I’m on the same team as him and I’ve got all his experience behind me to help me. Just surreal.’ The story is made all the more astonishing by the fact that at 16, Nathan – now 24 – had a hideous crash racing at Jurby on the Island, breaking his back, both femurs, both collarbones and smashing his ankle to bits. As Bike goes to press, the factory Fireblade you see here is being adapted for a right-hand gear change – the thumb brake has already been fitted in place.
‘My left ankle is fused and the joint doesn’t move,’ says Nathan. ‘Honda are making a new shaft and linkage that routes through the swingarm spindle to the right hand side. The back brake has been moved to the left handlebar as a thumb brake.’ Sixteen-time TT winner Ian Hutchinson uses the same system for similar reasons. Amazingly, despite the two years, 40 hours of surgery and countless weeks of physio needed to get him on his feet again, Nathan never considered giving up racing. ‘As soon as I was awake to the world and knew where I was [he’d been transferred from the Isle of Man to the Royal Liverpool hospital for specialist trauma care] my focus was to get out and see that year’s TT (2015). That was the year John won the Senior. After that, my focus was to get up on crutches so I could go to the startline and watch my brother at the Manx GP. I always had a target that was motorcycle related and eventually my focus was to get back on a bike. ‘Would I be a factory rider if I didn’t have the crash? It’s an interesting question. I don’t know,’ says Nathan. ‘It made me mature a lot quicker and that sort of trauma can make or break someone. I’m definitely better than I was before the injury.’
He’s not kidding. After getting on a bike for the first time after the crash at the end of 2017, Nathan became the youngest person to win the Junior and Senior Manx Grand Prix in 2019. After a pause for Covid he resumed his road racing ascent by doing a 128mph lap in his Senior TT debut and coming tenth – on a superstock bike with treaded tyres up against full superbikes on slicks. Another measure of that achievement was that the man who finished ninth, just a minute ahead after nearly two hours of racing, was a certain Mr Mcguinness.
Nathan’s Honda deal was partly down to these performances, but also because he inadvertently convinced team manager Havier Beltran he had the drive and initiative to succeed. ‘I had a problem with one of my bikes [all Hondas – Ed] in 2022 so I bit the bullet and went into the Honda garage at Oulton Park and asked Harv for help. He said he’d come over, and he did, and sorted the problem out. ‘Then we went to the North West 200 [another top 10 finish] and I got chatting to the team a bit more, then at the TT I asked for more help and the relationship developed. It meant a lot that someone who’s running a factory team makes time to help someone like me. Then, last November Harv rang and asked if I’d like to ride for them in 2023. I was speechless for about five seconds, then said ‘yes’. I didn’t have to do any thinking.’
‘Would I be a factory rider without the crash?’
James Hillier has lapped the Isle of Man TT course at an average speed of 132.414mph – that’s the seventh fastest in history. So he knows a thing or two about staying focused and assessing risk when it comes to going fast and racing. But this year’s Dakar rally pushed him further than he’s ever been before, partly because he entered the Malle Moto class, where you have no help with bike maintenance, and partly because he rode the last half of the rally with a dislocated collarbone. Still sounding exhausted two days after arriving home having finished 76th overall and third rookie in class, James tells Bike how he got his Gasgas 450 to the finish line.
Harder than you expected?
To do it in the first place I had to convince myself it wouldn’t be that bad, but deep down I knew it would be. There were a few times I thought it couldn’t get much harder, and then it did. It quickly became apparent I had to keep expecting things to get worse. Plus I was averaging about four hours sleep a night. But you have no choice. You have to keep riding. It was a tough old do.
Did you actually enjoy it?
The majority of the time, ‘no’. But the fleetingly enjoyable moments made it worth it. There were a few mornings on the liaisons [the bits between the stages] when the sun was rising and I had some good music on and it was surreal – I had to pinch myself I was actually there. Those moments made the long moments of struggle worth it.
Did your TT experience help?
Maybe. The big similarity is you really can’t take the piss with either. I rode past Sam’s bike after his crash [reigning champion Sam Sunderland broke his shoulder on stage one] and thought it was a mechanical. He’d crashed at low speed and hit a rock – it doesn’t take much to break you if you hit something that doesn’t move. You’re always a milli-second away from really hurting yourself.
Why did you choose the Gasgas?
There’s only one bike to use and that’s the KTM450 [ie, the Gasgas with different stickers] because KTM have a spares truck there. Also, it’s such a popular bike that if you break down there’s more chance that someone passing will have the spare 0you need.
How hard did you ride it?
I tried not to thrash it and was quite anal about always letting it warm up and giving it its best chance of finishing. I changed the oil and air filter every day, but no more [aside from tyres]. You’ve got to be careful doing too much because if you’re tired you risk making a mistake, like getting sand in the engine.
What’s it like doing your own spannering?
You have to work out what to do to get the best out of yourself – have a shower, sort your kit out, sort the bike out, eat… I often ended up eating while I was working on the bike and occasionally sacrificed jobs to get more sleep.
Did you end up resenting the factory riders?
Yes. You’d be riding with guys with white number boards [ie, they had support] during the day and you’d know they’d get back and hand the bike over and wander off for a shower before chilling out and going to bed. But the mechanical side was an enjoyable challenge.
Will you do it again?
If you’d asked me in the middle of the rally I would have said absolutely no way. But from then on I started seeing little things that people had or did that would make it easier next time. So maybe…
‘The fleetingly enjoyable moments made it worth it’