Tourist Trophy, 72 years ago the first “world” time

Seventy-two years ago, on 13 June 1949, at the Tourist Trophy of the Isle of Man, the world championship of motorcycling began with the 350 race. Two days after 250, four side tests with series-derived bikes followed, with the grand closing of the Senior TT reserved for the 500 class on 17 June, the start of which was given by the Duke of Edinburgh. The newborn World Championship could not have had a better theater, on an ups and downs of 60.723 km, as spectacular as it is treacherous between cobbles, walls, plants and poles, made up of shabby roads normally open to traffic on the Isle of Man, where the first race dates back to 1907 with 31 international editions, before the world championship dawn.

emblem, for better or for worse

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On June 13, 1949, with the first world championship race at the Mountain Circuit, the new cycle of world motorcycling began, between triumphs and glory but also between pain and grief in an exhilarating endless technical and competitive competition that still lasts today. The Tourist Trophy, for better or for worse, however you want to look at it, remains the emblem of motorcycling: at the same time an unsurpassed test bench for motorcycles and riders, exhilarating for its emotions and thrills and a warning not to overcome the thin line that divides the calculated risk from suicide, triumph from tragedy. Is it wrong or right to remove the TT from the World Championship? Wrong or right, run there anyway, beyond the rainbow frame? The questions remain open and any justified opinion is legitimate. One fact is certain: the Tourist Trophy was and remains the emblem of motorcycling. So it had to be done in a general context of society where the safety-risk relationship is always evolving, never the same. And therefore, in that meeting in London at the end of 1948, the representatives of the motorcycle federations of the various nations did well to decide to transform the European Championship (the last 1939 edition was won in the 500 by Dorino Serafini from Pesaro on a Gilera 4-cylinder compressor. ) in the World Championship starting from the TT and thus expanding the boundaries of motorcycling (manufacturers, riders, media, enthusiasts) beyond the old continent, with the involvement of the rest of the world: America, Japan, Asia, Australia, Africa.

between the two wars

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The first World Championship started with six Grand Prix (England, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Ulster, Italy), with five classes, even if in that first round of the TT 125 and sidecar they will be out, making their debut in the next Swiss GP. The fact remains that the protagonists of the races between the two wars, both the manufacturers and the drivers, while not being able to boast the title of world champions because the world championship was not there, fully deserve the rainbow halo, at least in the memory. The Italians, who have always been among the main protagonists in motorcycling both as riders and as manufacturers, had accepted the challenge of the Mountain Circuit since the 1920s: first of all with Achille Varzi, at the time the anti Nuvolari, who in the edition of the 1924 for the first time he manages to finish the grueling race, even if far from the leaders due to two falls due to fog. 13 years will have to pass to see the flag on the highest flagpole when in the edition of 16 June 1937, after a legendary comeback, the “black devil” “the black devil” Omobono Tenni on the Guzzi 250 triumphs (425 kilometers in 3h32’6 “, fastest lap in 29’08 average 125,052 Km / h), which two years earlier with his twin-cylinder 500 had beaten Stanley Woods on the saddle of the supercharged 50 HP” Steel Eagles “at 7500 rpm for over 180 Km / h and frame with rear elastic suspension the King of the TT Jimmie Guthrie and the other specialists on the invincible English bikes, whose last defeat dates back to 1911 by the American Indian. Together with Nuvolari, after the triumphal ride of the TT, Tenni becomes the Italian legend of motorsport in the world. An English radio commentator commented that race live: “Tenni is racing with such mad impetuosity as to leave doubts about the possibility that he can finish the entire race, in one piece”.

Italy in triumph

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The tricolor duo Tenni-Guzzi wins the TT, a hard blow for the British. The Duce himself goes to Mandello to reward all Guzzi and its champion. In the era of the world championship, other Italians will write their name in the TT roll of honor: first of all Carlo Ubbiali, Tarquinio Provini and Giacomo Agostini, with 10 victories. Of all, Mike Hailwood is unsurpassed with 14 victories even if the biggest haul is Joe Dunlop with 25 extra “world” centers. Among our great manufacturers, the triumphs and performances on the Mountain Circuit of Guzzi, Gilera, Benelli, Bianchi, Mondial, MV Agusta, Aermacchi, Ducati, Paton are unforgettable.

that first time

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But let’s go back to the first world TT in 1949. Still from “Motor Cycle”: “A path that skims the abysses and that from the paradise of Douglas, a blue port populated by white seagull wings and steamships at anchor, rises to the top of the Snaeffel , impressive and infernal… “. Three hundred thousand spectators attended that first edition from 13 to 17 June 1949 ecstatic at the start of the 350 with over 100 riders at the start and 75 classified at the finish, with a great fight between the AJS of Leslie Graham and Bill Duran and the Velocette of Freddie Frith and Ernie Lyson, eventually resolved in favor of the latter due to technical problems of the AJS. There is even the sprint for third place, which went to Artie Bell in front of brand mate Harold Daniel who burns Reg Amstrong (AJS), Bob Foster (Velocette) and Johnny Lockett (Norton). In the Lightweight race reserved for the 250, starting in a group and not with the riders at the start two at a time, the Italian manufacturers Benelli and Guzzi dominate. It seems made for Dario Ambrosini on the single-cylinder red of the Casa del Leone when the Cesenate flies away at high speed, due to the oily asphalt due to a previous accident, giving the green light to the Aquila motorcycles piloted by Enrico Lorenzetti (also shortly after out due to a fall ), Manliff Barrington and Tommy Wood. Followed by Roland Pike (Rudge), Ronald Mead (Norton), Sven-Aage Sorensen (Excelsior) with Wood’s fastest lap in 28’08.9 at an average of 129.4 Km / h.

over 100 falls

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And here is the grand finale of 17 June with the highlight of the 500 race, with 59 drivers admitted out of the over 80 members. The Irish Artie Bell (former Ulster winner in 1947) on Norton sets the best time in qualifying: 25’52.0 at an average that exceeds the ceiling of 140 km / h. Seven laps race for a total of 425.1 km! After several skirmishes, mid-race in the third lap it is Leslie Graham on AJS who takes off, followed by teammate Reg Armstrong and Bob Foster (he will win the 350 World Championship on Velocette the following year) on Guzzi, forced to retire for the breaking of the hub of the flywheel when he was first and had set the fastest lap at almost 145 km / h on average. The first three are the protagonists of more crashes and among these only Graham at the end crosses the finish line, albeit battered, only 10th with 11 and a half minutes behind. Always due to falls other great protagonists retire including Arthur Wheeler, Eric Oliver, Freddie Frith. Nortons triumph with Harold Daniell and Johnny Lockett on Ernie Lyons (Velocette), Artie Bell (Norton), Sid Jensen and Fred Stevens on Triumph. Graham, however, scored the fastest lap in 25’31 ”on the second lap at an average of 142.8 km / h. In short, the world debut at the TT speaks only the English language, occupying the three steps of the podium in all categories. In that first world round at the 1949 TT there were over 100 crashes, some serious, one fatal, the one that cost Ben Drinkwater his life, in the Junior TT. Which bikes were competing in that first Tourist Trophy, the start of the World Championship? Here we limit ourselves to mentioning the legendary Moto Guzzi bikes of the time, among the absolute protagonists in the three largest displacements. For example, the single-cylinder 250 which at the end of 1949 will become world champion with the excellent Veronese champion Bruno Ruffo after epic duels with Dario Ambrosini on the Benelli twin cam. Even before the Second World War, the Mandello company had the best of racing bikes, starting with the 250, which however, with the inhibition of compressors and special fuel mixtures (since 1946 maximum petrol of 72 octane with considerable power reduction ) will have many problems forcing revisions and redesigns of the engines. Right at the dawn of the world championship, in the hard-fought quarter-liter (Italian, British, German bikes) Guzzi brings the 110 kg “Gambalunghino” to the track, over 25 HP at 8,500 rpm and almost 180 Km / h. In the 350 (main rivals Norton and AJS before the arrival of the Gilera then the MV Agusta, then Bianchi) Guzzi held the ground with the single-cylinder 320 cc twin cam. from 32 HP at 8000 rpm and over 180 Km / h. At that time, in the 500, Mandello’s best bike was the “Gambalunga” with the “flat” engine of the single-cylinder Dondolino on the innovative frame: here you reach 40 HP at 8000 rpm at 190 Km / h. A completely different story, then, with the exit from Mandello of the new family of multi-cylinder racing cars, starting precisely from the twin-cylinder 500 protagonist at the TT 1949 (145 Kg, 48 HP at over 8000 rpm, on 200 Km / h) up to the revolutionary 500 8 cylinders from 1956-57 with over 80 HP and over 280 Km / h! The race at the Mountai Circuit has always been lived and is experienced as a special week, an international popular festival, a rite which the enthusiast could not and cannot miss in logic: “The absent are always wrong”. Since the first edition in 1907, many unpublished details and ceremonials, such as the time board, an endless wooden and iron file placed on the straight line of the finish line, updated with the times and rankings of the Boy Scout riders who are preparing a year for that trial. Anyone who has been to the TT even once as a spectator can proudly say: “I was there”. In fact, the TT must not be told, it must be experienced.