bike which isn’t working properly and which could pitch me off at any second? It’s my bloody neck, no matter how much I’m getting paid to lay it on the line, and I won’t risk it unnecessarily to gain a position in a race because racing’s really not that important. Don’t get me wrong, if I’m feeling comfortable and confident on a bike I’ll push as hard as anyone out there but only if the machine’s right.
Maybe that’s been a big downfall in my career and it’s certainly caused some friction within teams I’ve ridden for, but that’s just the way I am. A commercial pilot wouldn’t take off in a plane if he knew it was faulty so what’s the difference with a racing bike?
I’ve never been a big crasher and that’s partly because I refuse to push bikes which aren’t up to it but I’m certainly not afraid of crashing – it’s all part of the territory in this sport and you have to accept that. But many accidents are avoidable so, if I can, I avoid them. Some team managers have complained that my team-mates seem to manage to get decent results on an identical bike to the one I’m riding when it’s not working right, so why can’t I? But that same team-mate was usually riding by the seat of his pants, crashing a lot and taking all sorts of risks just to get the occasional decent result. To me, it makes much more sense to work on getting the bike right and then the results will follow.
And it’s not that I’m a quitter either, as some people probably think. I’ve heard people say, ’Oh, Hislop will chuck the towel in if things aren’t going well,’ or, ‘He’ll come apart like a cheap watch when the pressure’s on.’ But it’s total bullshit. I will try everything I know to get a bike set up properly and I’m prepared to have some scary moments while I’m experimenting with different set-ups, too, if that’s what it takes. The 1994 TT is a good example. The Honda RC45 I was riding that year was a real handful round the Island and I don’t know how many near misses I had in practice, but I worked away at it all through practice week until I had it a bit more under control. My team-mates, Joey Dunlop and Phillip McCallen, had too many other bikes to set up so I concentrated on the RC45 to try to find settings for all of us. Both Joey and Phillip were happy enough with my set-up advice and Joey even borrowed my spare set of forks for the races. I haven’t seen them since but, knowing Joey, they’re probably still lying around in his pub somewhere! The point is that initially the bike was so bad that Joey didn’t want to ride it and that’s really saying something because Joey could ride anything round the TT. But I persevered because I thought there was light at the end of the tunnel and in the end I won both races on it.
It was the same with the Norton in 1992. It was an absolute nightmare to ride at the beginning of practice week, bucking and weaving everywhere but I stuck with it, too, and got it going right for the Senior class race which I won. But sometimes bikes are beyond help and I flatly refuse to risk my life on an under-powered or poor-handling bike just to get a sixth place. No way!
I certainly had plenty of time to get my Yamaha ready for the 1984 Manx Grand Prix because it was the only race I did all year except for one outing at Knockhill that I treated as a shakedown session for the Manx. My bike was a 1978 model, which was obviously getting a bit long in the tooth, so I spent a good bit of cash upgrading it that year. I bought an alloy frame to make the bike lighter and new bodywork to make it look more modern, together with some other smaller parts. It ended up looking really good, even though it was a bit of a hybrid. I really enjoyed my race at Knockhill. It’s always been a good track to ride on smaller bikes but I think it’s too tight and twisty for modern Superbikes so I’ve come to dislike it in the last few years, even though it’s my ‘home’ circuit in the British Superbike championship.
Wullie Simson came over to the 1984 Manx with me as did Wendy Oliver, who I was seeing quite seriously at the time and who was the daughter of Jim Oliver, my boss. I had entered the 350 in the Junior and Senior events and practice went okay apart from some problems with my new frame, which broke a couple of times. I got it welded up again but I wasn’t sure if it would last race distance. Sure enough, I was running in about third place in the Junior race when the bike started mishandling badly because the frame had broken again so I was forced to pull in and call it a day.
You never stop learning at the Isle of Man. Every time out on the bike, there’s something different whether it’s the weather, changes to the road surface or any number of other things; I was still learning that course the last year I rode it in 1994. I even used to lie in bed at night and visualize my way round it – every corner, every bump, every straight, lap after lap after lap. Sometimes I’d wake up and think, ‘Shit, I only got to Ballacraine last night. That’s no good.’ Some people count sheep when they can’t sleep but I used to do as many laps of that damned course as I could before sleep took over.
Anyway, after I’d pulled out of the Junior class race I doubted whether I’d be able to ride in the Senior event with the same dodgy frame. Luckily, I met up with Ray Cowles who had offered my brother a ride on his 500cc bike before he was killed. Ray was fielding Ian Lougher at the Manx but he crashed in practice and broke his collarbone, so Ray offered me the use of his TZ350 Yamaha for the Senior. I finished fifth in the race up against much bigger and faster 500cc machines which was pretty good going and I think I was the first 350 bike home, lapping at around 107mph.
I may have become the first man in history to lap the TT at over 120mph in 1989, but back in 1984, lapping at 107mph felt awesome. If someone had told me then how fast I’d eventually end up going round that track I’d never have believed it. The 350 lap record at the TT proper was only about 112mph, so I wasn’t far off the pace of the professional riders and that’s when someone suggested I enter the TT and get some money back for my efforts instead of doing the Manx again. The Manx was, and is, an amateur event but the TT paid start money to riders so at least some of my expenses would be covered, and if I managed to win some prize money then so much the better.
I certainly needed the money because I was broke when I got back from the Isle of Man. So broke, in fact, that I had to sell my Yamaha RD250LC road bike. That left me with no transport at all, but Jim Oliver once again came to the rescue and gave me a Honda C70 step-through scooter just like the ones you see grannies riding to the supermarket on. All that was missing was a little basket to put the cat food and tins of corned beef in.
The bike was an MOT failure so it was worth practically nothing but I was grateful to Jim all the same. Everybody laughed at me on that thing but I rode it every day regardlessly for two years. There I was, Steve Hislop, second in the Manx Grand Prix and just six months away from becoming a TT rider and my only road bike was a daft, old granny’s scooter. I even remember going to work a few times in my papa’s Reliant Robin three-wheeler for want of anything better! But I eventually had the last laugh as I started a trend for riding scooters in the area. A few of my mates got strapped for cash too so they all took my lead, sold their cars and bought scooters. From feeling like an idiot riding one on my own, it actually became a brilliant laugh with all of us riding round together on them.
Looking back now I really should have spent that winter looking for sponsorship, but I was never any good at that. I was very backward at coming forward and I could probably have sold myself a lot better if I’d been a more cocky type. I did write letters to local firms, asking if they’d be interested in helping me out, but I realize now I didn’t push hard enough. I hated the thought of going begging for money.
One person who did help me a lot, though, was a guy called Brian Reid who used to drink in my mum’s pub. He helped out writing letters and with other things, and I used to take him to the races sometimes. He became one of my biggest supporters and even helped start a Steve Hislop supporter’s club to try to raise some money for racing. One night, as he was playing pool in the pub, Brian stumbled backwards quite dramatically and we all thought he was pissed so we just laughed about it. However, it turned out to be the first signs of a rare disease of the central nervous system and he’s now in a wheelchair for life. But eventually he got the coolest wheelchair around when it was sprayed up as a replica of my famous ‘Hizzy’ helmet in shocking pink and blue!
Brian’s a great bloke and has such a passion for bike racing. He wrote to all sorts of people such as Paul McCartney and Richard Branson asking for sponsorship and eventually he landed me my first proper sponsor – Marshall Lauder Knitwear of