You may remember earlier in the year one of our new members “peddrotzr” posted picture of some of his bikes. A nice lc250, TZR535 and the Len Manchester spondon YAMAHA 500 world tt F1 race bike. The f1 bike is also known as the mermaid, one of the bikes that sank on the joey dunlop fishing boat. This and the tzr535 do get used for example at the iom classic parade laps.
I asked the owner, aka Johnny Corrin, who some on here know, if he had any video of the bikes running. Well this week he sent me some links to some on-board footage of the parade lap at the 2017 and 2018 iom parade laps on the F1 yamaha 500. The pace is very rapid!
Here are links to the footage
Classic TT 2018Start to Ramseyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3GClLAw2-g&t=2sClassic TT 2017Glen Helen to Windy Corner, the bike went on to 3 cylinders just before Windy Corner so I pulled over as its a very valuable bike.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksfTN8BtGI&t=1sI didn’t know Johnny but could see he was fast so I asked if he had done some racing at the iom. He told me that he hadn’t raced there but had done a few years racing on the mainland. Turns out he started racing in 1982 and finished 2nd in the marlboro clubmans 250 production championship. In 1985 he won the ACU/MCA 250 championship ans was lying 2nd in the 1987 TZR cup when a serious crash forced him out... he returned and in 1989 won the ACU star supersport 400cc championship on a Belstaf Yamaha.... So to say he was a bit quick turned out to be a bit of an understatement on my part...
It also turns out that he was the guy who won the 2nd race at the 2015 Pro-Am race at Cadwell Park, supporting the BSB round, he came 2nd in race 1. Johnny was invited to race by the organisers and accepted even though he hadn’t raced for a long time...
Here is a link to some tv footage of the race
here is the full race 2https://youtu.be/kheRxNZEfE0Here is a link to photos of the pro am weekend
https://www.flickr.com/photos/157250085@N07/albums/72157685347484844And a link to some info about Johnny
https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/features/racing/bennetts-yamaha-pro-am-class-of-2015-john-corrinAnd here is a link to the tv program about the joey dunlop fishing boat
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007km34Some great footage which I hope you enjoy. Johnny has kindly agreed to share it with us. Should keep you entertained for a while..