A tribute to:

David Jefferies
      and Steve Hislop

Two major players will be absent from this year's TT. David Jefferies died during practice for last year's races, whilst Steve Hislop was killed in a helicopter accident just two months later. Mac McDiarmid pays tribute to two TT greats.

DAVID JEFFERIES
Born 18 September 1972
Died 29 May 2003

The enormity of David Jefferies' death seems barely diminished by the passing of this last year. Partly as a result of his loss (see page 44), the TT itself is under scrutiny as it rarely has been before. And, come the opening race on 5 June, we will all be aware – riders and fans alike – that the man most likely, the TT's most potent force, will be conspicuously absent from the grid. But most of all let us not forget that our loss is nothing compared to that felt by his family.
And let us not forget, too, the special qualities that DJ brought to the races. He was fast, for sure – blisteringly so. But what was so beguiling was the ebullient gusto with which he regarded the experience of hacking around the Mountain at unprecedented speed. It was surely this innocent enthusiasm, allied to his plain-speaking, down-to-earth character, that so appealed to ordinary fans. DJ didn't shove his ego in your face. He was one of us, just a bloke who liked riding bikes, and nowhere more so than around the Mountain Course.
“I love it,” he said during the process of scoring the last of his triples in 2002. “The buzz you get round here is mega…the buzz of getting it right is just so good.”
“I'm fortunate – I don't get nervous,” he told me during the same record-breaking week, “and don't really think about it much in advance. I just go out and do it, but concentrate on being fast and smooth. There's no need to rehearse the course in my head – I know where I'm going and just do it as I get there.”
In a sport in which competitors constantly live on the edge, I never saw DJ lose it. Pre-race nerves weren't part of his act. Jack Valentine, for whom he rode to his first TT wins when little more than a rookie, reckons “he always had that quiet confidence and very rarely got rattled. He just went out as if it was a Sunday morning ride. Obviously he had got a screw loose, but he was good.”
The sheer élan with which DJ could wrestle a bike around the 37-mile TT course put him in a different league from everyone else. It's often said that to do a fast TT lap you do the fast bits fast and let the slower ones take care of themselves. DJ, as anyone watching was instantly aware, simply did the fast bits faster than most other riders could conceive.

As a pedestrian, big Dave didn't exactly move like a ballet dancer. But put him on a bike, and he became an artist. Totally in control, he made his machine dance to his tune. His size and strength – handicaps on short circuits — became assets on the Isle of Man.
It was inevitable that he would find himself in some form of motorcycle sport. His grandfather, Allan, was the leading British trials rider of the late Thirties. During the Seventies his father, Tony, won two TT races, whilst Nick, his uncle, won the Formula One TT in 1993 and was earlier a factory trials rider. Indeed, DJ's arrival was hastened when his mother, Pauline, went into labour after watching her husband crash at Mallory Park race track.
DJ first competed in trials aged seven on a 80cc Yamaha, a Christmas present from his parents (although his first reaction on receiving it was to play with a new bow and arrow given by Uncle Nick). Seven years later he began racing in motocross events, but knee ligament damage cut short his off-road career. Instead, in 1990 he began tarmac racing on a 600cc Yamaha.
Although he later competed in grands prix and world superbike events, his physique was always against him. Nonetheless, he scored a number of successes in British championships, notably in 1996 when he took both the British Powerbike Production and Triumph Speed Triple titles. Four years ago, he added the British Superstock championship.
Unlike many pro racers, DJ loved to ride bikes on public roads. As a teenager he made a habit of epic journeys in all weathers, many on a puny 50cc moped. If this made him a natural for racing on closed public roads circuits such as the Isle of Man, his parents were initially opposed. “Over my dead body,” was his father's first reaction.
Yet in 1998 DJ entered his first TT, claiming the best newcomers award with a lap at over 115mph. The following year he missed the Manx races through injury, but returned in 1999 to win no less than three events, a remarkable achievement in only his second year. Over the next two TTs, 2000 and 2002, he scored two further triples, a feat unique in TT history. His 2002 record lap, 127.29mph was simply astounding.
But between smashing records, DJ's approach was nothing if not low-key. “My first lap, wearing an orange bib, I just went touring. Didn't even tuck in. Just enjoyed myself, and shut off anywhere I wasn't sure of.” By the end of the week he was lapping at 113mph on a stock 600, and “knew, if I wanted to go quicker, I needed a faster bike.”
Although last year he'd struggled with machines rather trickier to set up than the Suzukis he'd ridden in 2002, he was a rider who, fast as he was, rarely seemed to have any huge moments. “I'll still back it off if I'm not sure or if the bike isn't up to it. The secret here is preparation – coming out of each corner right for the next. You need to really know the place, and have the confidence to place the bike exactly where you want it. Generally I'll go into corners late and come out with plenty of room to spare, so if you have a slide, you've got room.
“I know I can do it, he said, brim-full of self-belief. “It's just a question of whether the bike can, too.” At the time he'd audaciously just taken Bray Hill flat out on a bike he'd never ridden before.
With hindsight those sound like fateful words, but the fact is that we'll never know fully what happened as DJ screamed the TAS Suzuki into Crosby Corner on that fateful day.
Just two days before DJ died on the Thursday of practice week last year, I was chatting with him and Iain Duffus in the paddock. Both men had survived major engine blow-ups – DJ, on his 600, Duffus on his GSX-R1000 – and both were counting their lucky stars, for both machines wore belly pans adapted to catch engine oil, as mandated by BSB rules. “I was glad of that – was I ever. It saved me a big moment and meant that anyone behind didn't have my oil to worry about.” Two days later he was dead, oil from someone else's engine being implicated in the incident.
But there's no turning back the clock, nothing to do but accept that the man has gone.
And give thanks for the bright spark he brought to all of us.

Steve Hislop Tribute / article continues >>>>>>


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