A tribute to:

David Jefferies
      and Steve Hislop - Page 2

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.

STEVE HISLOP
Born 11 January 1962
Died 30 July 2003

Admiring Steve Hislop race, all blinding speed and breathtaking precision, gave me more pleasure than watching any other rider. On his day, he was as fast as any man alive. And when he harnessed that talent to the particular rigours of the TT, lap records tumbled.
Like DJ, he seemed to enjoy a special affinity with the Mountain Course. When he spoke of riding it, he positively bubbled with the experience re-lived. One of his most endearing characteristics when asked, say, what gear he used for a particular section, was to ride to it, complete with engine noises and the blips of gearchanges, before announcing “that'd be third, then,” with a grin. Even in his own front room, Hizzy could give you the experience of racing at breakneck speed.
Steve's elder brother, Garry, initially carried the Hislop racing banner with distinction, winning the 350cc Newcomers race at the 1982 Manx Grand Prix whilst Steve was still terrorising the locals in a succession of battered minis. Six weeks later Garry was dead, killed at “some poxy club meeting at Silloth,” whilst setting up a bike for the Macau Grand Prix, as Steve later recalled.
Steve's racing ambitions might have ended there if he hadn't taken a holiday at the '83 TT. Spectating at the 11th milestone, he was mesmerised by the dice between Joey Dunlop and Norman Brown in the Senior Classic race. “That was it, I just had to have a go. So I went behind everyone's back, bought an old TZ350 and got a racing licence.”

In his first Isle of Man race, the 1983 250cc Newcomers Manx Grand Prix, Steve placed second, beginning his TT career the following year. What would truly set him apart was successfully making the transition from being a complete TT specialist to becoming a world-class short circuit star, a process which began almost by accident. In 1986 he decided that if he was to go any faster around the Isle of Man, he needed “more energy, more aggression and more technique” in his riding – qualities he thought short circuit scratching could provide.
In 1987 he posted the first of 11 TT wins in the Formula 2 TT on a private 350 Yamaha, a result which brought him to the notice of Honda's Bob McMillan. By 1989 he was a Honda Britain rider. What followed may have honed Hizzy's riding skills, but most of us will remember it for a succession of truly memorable races, beginning with a triple win in 1989. But the three races I'll remember were his enthralling losing dice with Ian Lougher in the 1990 250cc race, and above all his battles with Carl Fogarty in 1991 and '92.
The first of those years, featuring a face-off on full works RVF750s, was the most sustained week of racing adrenalin I can recall. During practice, first Hizzy, then Foggy, then Hizzy again, obliterated the lap record. It was racing at its rawest and most venal. When the Flying Haggis triumphed in the Formula One race, he truly established himself as the finest TT rider of his time.
Twelve months later the same duo were at it again, but this time the hardware was different. Hizzy rode an ill-handling Norton, whilst Foggy's Yamaha was no better behaved. In the Senior, held in gloriously sunny conditions, the pair were never separated by more than a few seconds, and even on the final lap were constantly swapping the lead. Hizzy won, of course, giving Norton a memorable Senior win for the first time in 31 years, but Foggy fully played his part and was rewarded with an enduring lap record.

Hizzy sat out the following TT, returning in 1994 to give the RC45 comfortable wins in the F1 and Senior events, but by then it all looked too easy. He never again raced in the TT, although in 2001 he entered on a Ducati, only for the Foot and Mouth epidemic to intervene (somewhat to his relief). “From a career point of view,” he told me shortly before his death, “I spent too many years concentrating on the TT. The TT was the making of my career, so obviously it means a lot to me, but I concentrated too much on it for too long.”
On short circuits Steve won the British 250cc championship (1990) and Superbikes series (1995 and 2002), a measly reward for his abundant talent. The ‘nearly' list is far longer: World Formula One championship in '89, three World Endurance championship near-misses, as well as runner-up slots in domestic racing.
For all his gifts, Hizzy was one of the enigmas of the racing scene. “Flawed genius” was the most frequent description of those with whom he worked. Rob McElnea spoke with admiration of the way Steve had “such good feel for a bike…Carl [Fogarty], Niall [Mackenzie]…he's as fast as all of them, but often he's been the classic ‘If only…' Never notably well-off, his commercial naivety cost him tens of thousands in wages and sponsorship deals sharper negotiators might have grabbed, and he never landed the major factory contract that his abilities warranted. But then getting on and riding always interested him more than off-track politics, or cow-towing to racing's brass.

Moody rather than temperamental, he was an appealing character who was also a loner, yet a man not always able to summon the mental strength to make full use of his talents. If this fragility contributed to his being sacked three times by teams for which he rode, the last of them only a month before his death, it also made him more human and personally engaging. If on his day he was damnably hard to beat, Steve was also hard to dislike.
I liked Steve Hislop as an individual, and nothing in racing gave me more pleasure than to watch the fluency with which he carved racing lines. Fast, precise and brave, he was simply the most exhilarating rider I have seen around the TT course, and on his day as close to perfection as any short circuit specialist. As a racer he could be close to genius. As a man he is already much missed. Thanks, pal, for

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