The 60 Minutes video titled “Isle of Man TT: The world’s most dangerous motorcycle race” takes viewers on a thrilling ride through the history and culture of the Isle of Man, a tiny island in the Irish Sea. The video showcases the beauty and tranquility of the island, which is home to a unique and independent people known as “Mans.” However, for two weeks every year, the island becomes one of the loudest, fastest, and most dangerous places in the world, as it hosts the Isle of Man TT, a motorcycle race that pushes riders to the limits of speed and skill.
The video features interviews with British motorcycle racer Peter Hickman, a 13-time winner of the Isle of Man TT, who talks about the exhilarating experience of racing on the island’s public roads at speeds of up to 195 mph. The race covers a 37-mile course that winds through villages and pastures, with riders taking more than 200 turns just inches from rock walls and buildings. The video highlights the Isle of Man’s history as a Viking Kingdom and its unique language and cultural heritage, including efforts to preserve the Manx language, and its proud independence, tax laws, and rich history of smuggling and trade.
In addition to showcasing the heart-stopping adrenaline rush of the Isle of Man TT, the video explores the island’s unique history, culture, and identity, making it a must-watch for racing enthusiasts and anyone interested in the fascinating story of this remarkable island.
Watch the video by 60 Minutes
If you ask most Americans to point out the aisle of man on a globe it might take them a while the 30m Long Island sits in the middle of the Irish sea with England to the East and Ireland to the West it once was the seat of a Viking
Kingdom today Britain’s King Charles is head of state or Lord of man people born there are known as mans and the aisle has its own unique language and a tailless cat also called MS a few hundred years ago it was known as a Haven for Smugglers the Buccaneers are
Gone Bankers have now turned the aisle into a tax Haven but what Drew us to the aisle of man was not the beauty or the banking but a hair raising annual event that at first glance seems totally out of place on this tiny Jewel of an island the story will continue in a
Moment with Emerald fields and rugged coastlines dotted with ruins of medieval castles the pace of life on the aisle of man is slow even sleepy for 50 weeks of the year but for two weeks starting at the end of May it becomes one of the loudest fastest most dangerous places in
Sport it’s like nothing else no matter what you’ve done in your life until you see a bike do the what we’re doing here Nothing Compares at all like in places it shouldn’t wheel it’s like British motorcycle racer Peter Hickman is one of the best in the World and a 13-time winner of a race known as the Isle of Man TT short for both Tourist Trophy and time trial not long before we met Hickman we watched him fly over the first jump on the course at a place known as ao’s leap we saw you go by ago’s leap today
And truly it was a blur it was just like like a a speeding bullet how how fast do you think you were going when you went by there ago leaps around 185 to 195 mph somewhere around there it’s Top Gear besides the blinding speeds what truly makes the aisle of Man TT
Unique is that it is run on public roads that are open to normal traffic until just 30 minutes before racing begins on a 37m course that covers much of the island running through Villages and pastures with riders taking more than 200 turns just inches from rock walls and buildings and residents
You literally race through a village and it just feels like you shouldn’t be doing it but we’re allowed on the AIS of man on the AIS of man there’s more to say about the TT much more but first what is it about this tranquil aisle that produces such a
Wild and improbable race the people on the island like to do things their own way Katrina Mackey moved here from Scotland 15 years ago well that’s a really and now teaches University students the history of the aisle of man she told us over the centuries the blood
And cultures of English Irish and Viking clashed and mixed here to create the unique Ms identity the M see themselves as you know we’re not English we’re not Irish we are mons from what you’re telling me the aisle of man seems to always be finding its own path that
Streak seems to define it yeah it still has that streak of Independence and a lot of it does come from its North Heritage the Norse vikings sailed south from Scandinavia more than a thousand years ago in search of places to conquer in 1079 Norse gelic ruler called godri
Croven invaded the Isle of Man for the third time Third Time Lucky for him this was the seat of the Norse Kingdom for a while for a while yeah that’s right contrary to their reputation the Vikings didn’t just plunder and move on on the aisle of man they established a sort of
Parliament called the tin Wald that still makes the laws here it is the longest continuous running parliament in the world and it is an important part of the M’s identity another important aspect of identity is the MS language which natives have been speaking and singing for nearly 1500
Years Ruth Kagan gel works at a cultural organization dedicated to preserving and popularizing the mans language oh my God that was beautiful thank you why does it matter to to save the language my ancestors spoke M so for me it’s it’s a nice way of feeling like
I’m connected I think if we were to lose Ms we’d be so much the poorer for it let’s try and do that all together H Ms nearly was lost by the 1950s after more and more English speakers visited or settled on the aisle there were fewer than 200 man speakers left when a
Concerted effort began to revive the language and I’m going to teach you how to say jamus has The Rebirth of the language has been described as sort of like a phoenix like story yeah defitely yeah it’s a strong it’s a resilient language and I think there’s more and more Pride
All the time with people embracing mans and seeing it as a really really good thing but it is just like that the the Phoenix rising out of the ashes it didn’t die it got perilously close squidy okay we all ready belu today Ruth k teaches adult Ms classes at a local pub
F and this means knowledge while just a few hundred yards down the road four and 5-year-olds are learning to count in a MX language immersion school it’s really exciting seeing people going from having you know one or two words in their very first lesson you know you’re starting to introduce
Yourself M Ruth you know coos who are you and you’d say Mish Bill back Mish Bill Mish bill yeah yend well done that’s good SL Ms has spoken when the tinal the Isle of man’s Parliament meets in ceremonial session for centuries the tin Wald has charted the isis’s unique path it was
The first legislature in the world to grant women the vote it especially asserts M’s Independence in matters of Taxation England in the mid 17th century had raised its customs duties the a of man didn’t so you have tobacco and tea and Brandy and rum coming from Europe
And elsewhere into the aisle of man that were then taken from the island in small boats and smuggled into England or Scotland but the smuggling was known as um running the running trade or the trade yes absolutely yeah and that was very lucrative very very lucrative yeah
It was at that point point that the British government decided okay we really need to do something about this enough is enough yeah the British effectively took control of the aisle of man and to this day the British monarch is head of state and has the right to veto any mans law
In practice that power is almost never used and the aisle of man fiercely guards its independence you know we have our own tax laws um and the island is very very proud of that in a way what was going on in the 17th and 18th century the trade was this place was
Kind of a tax Haven in in some respects I guess you could call it that it is again today is again today yeah um most companies don’t pay any corporation tax at all zero zero their level of income tax is much lower than it is elsewhere so we have a top
Rate of income tax of 20% we have a lot of people living on the island who are very very wealthy who pay relatively little tax on the island than they would elsewhere the isle’s total population is a little more than 80,000 but many of the world’s biggest
Banks have a branch here the owners of more than a thousand private jets avoid millions of dollars in taxes by registering them on the aisle of man just as it has tried to make its tax laws attractive the aisle of man has worked long long and hard to attract
Tourists by the 1880s 1890s a week’s holiday by the Sea had become a British institution really and by 1913 just before the first world war we were seeing 600 650,000 people visiting the island every summer huge huge huge numbers of visitors among those visitors around the turn of the 20th century were
A few wealthy people who brought with them new fangled machines called Motorcars the spe they were doing were quite phenomenal according to Matthew Richardson curator at the MS National Heritage Museum these were the founding fathers of the race now known as the Isle of Man TT the TT began actually as
A car race that’s where we get the name Tourist Trophy from because it began as a race for touring cars uh there was no opportunity to race cars in the United Kingdom at this time because Parliament there had banned road closures for racing and you guys just said yeah sure
We’ll close our roads down well partly the leftenant governor was the cousin of the chairman of the royal Automobile Club s Julian or the island man economy at that time was heavily dependent on tourists coming here and he thought that having a racing event would only bring
More tourists and he was proved to be absolutely right was he ever when we come back we’ll see how and why the Isle of Man TT has become a bucket list destination for motorcycle riders and racing fans from all over the world the Isle of man’s unique culture and
Man’s language set it apart but it’s the race known as the TT that has really put it on the map first held in 1907 it is the most dangerous motorcycle race on Earth more than 250 Riders have been killed over the Years yet every year fans flock across the Irish sea to watch
And Racers clamor for an invitation to ride the story will continue in a [Applause] Moment like is my life that’s the thing it always has been since I was a wee boy my dad sat me on the Hedge and I watched this bike go past and I thought that’s what I want to do when I grow up super sport and super twins to
The start line please Richard milky Quail was born and raised on the aisle of man a msman through and through is how he puts it in 1997 he got his wish to race in the TT and 5 years later he won it so what is it like as a msman to win
The TT well I mean there’s only ever been three of us that have ever done it in 118 years or whatever so I think it’s a bit like when you you go to do your washing on your trousers and you have you stick your washing and you you just I’ll just
Check the pockets before putting you you reach in there and you’ll find £10 pound and oh yeah I’ve got1 pound Rich well if you can multiply that by a million that’s what it’s like to win a TT it’s just like woohoo the actual prize money is minuscule compared to other professional
Sports the winner of this year’s top class TT race won just over $30,000 there are five classes in all dictated by the power of the motorcycle and the number of laps Riders are constantly breaking shifting and twisting the throttle thousands of times every lap then there is the sidecar race
Three- wheeled Contraptions that scream around the course with a driver and a passenger whose job is to throw their weight around every curve just inches off the ground you need only to look at old photos to see how the race has changed early sidecar outfits looked like what you might see on the
Street today they resemble angry mutant Bob sleds the first motorcycles were basically bicycles with engines strapped on today’s bikes are bullets ridden by some of the top Pro racers in the world I’m trying to beat the clock not the person in front of me effectively milky Quail gave us a taste
Of what it’s like to ride the course with a bike mounted on a simulator up towards the black do so got little this is incredible and an actual lap playing on a screen in front of him over to the left and then over to the right ah it
Takes so much physical effic to get the thing to turn through there so this is so straight now bill this is one of the fastest points on the circuit everything’s a blur going by you 190 195 200 mph here this is nuts you know that right well it’s it’s fun though it’s
It’s one he knows a lot of people won’t get his definition of fun now the last time you raced as as a rider was what 20 years ago 20 years ago now yeah yeah yeah it nearly killed you didn’t it yeah yeah Yeah yeah it did but I mean what happened I made one little mistake and what was your mistake I just literally entered the corner too early and I just caught the rock face with my shoulder and it just snagged and it pulled me then to the wall on the right and then I
Threw over and hit the wall on the left and yeah that’s the that’s the flip side of the coin in it it’s just you know when it goes bad it you know it can hurt you the crash in 2003 ruptured his spleen and punctured both of his lungs
Among other injuries I remember I was lying in the hospital by in a journalist came in to see me want an interview and stuff and he was trying to put words in me mouth like yeah well you you must hate it then mustn’t you must it’s
Dangerous you want was want to get it stopped and was like you are why would I want to stop it it’s the best thing in the world that anyone could ever want to do why would I want to stop it just because it hurt me the only way of
Making this event safe is to not do it you know if we’re going to race sports bikes through towns and villages on public roads that inherent danger is going to be there okay guys Paul Phillips is the man who has been in overall charge of the Isle of Man for the last 15
Years some people in our audience who are not really familiar with the race would be surprised at the the casualty statistics 250 casualties over the years just last year you know that’s got some people you know sort of howling that this race is too dangerous it shouldn’t be I
Totally understand that um and you know this event really doesn’t embody the sort of human Spirit nobody is forced to come and do this and this event does kind of give human being opportunity to kind of test themselves and push their boundaries and and live their lives to
The absolute limit like the ultimate expression of free will yeah yeah even if that Free Will can get you killed so it seems yeah to be honest as a rider you don’t really think about it Hickman takes his third senior TT Peter Hickman has won 13 TT races including this
Year’s Marquee race the senior TT 225 miles over six grueling laps as a rider we have already accepted if someone’s here and riding and signed up we have already accepted what that consequence is if we make a mistake yeah the course is all good all the way to
Ramsey organizers of the TT have taken steps to minimize risk where they can Riders are sent off the start line at 10-second intervals to make space between them but passes with not an inch to spare still Happen perhaps the most most significant change has been to strictly limit the number of racers to just over 30 sidecar teams and 100 solo Riders how important is it just to determine that a rider is good enough to be on this course Very one of the things when I first started
Working on the TT was that that wasn’t the case you know there were people coming here who were ill prepared now there’s a strict protocol for wouldbe firsttime Racers and milky Quail is a key part of it the Apex is there see okay he first takes newcomers
Around the course in a car so then what’s going to happen is then during practice week he leads them on an actual lap to see how they perform and whether they can keep up you ever have someone you’re taking around and you go they’re not ready yeah I remember
Going behind when I was behind milky K on my initiation lab and I actually screamed in my helmet went this is crazy Renny skas Brook made milky’s cut an Australian now living in California he is a full-time motorcycle journalist and a part-time racer who was invited here after winning the Pikes
Peak race in the US his first TT was last year when six Riders were killed that’s some really awful stuff that happens here you can’t sugar cut it but on the other side you know it is the most incredible place to ride a motorcycle like the Danger’s up
Here the exhilaration is up here it’s so unlike anything else you ask any motorcyclist and you say the old man T and they all they all know during practice week we met one of the fairies the primary means of getting to the island and watched as hundreds upon
Hundreds of racing fans rolled off to accommodate the 40,000 fans who come to the race almost every soccer and Rugby field becomes a campground and the roads while they’re open are clogged with riders the fan can R off the boat sit at the side of the
Road watch the hero go past half an hour later after the road’s open they can ride on the same track it’s the best it is the best Bill you know it’s the best there’s no admission fee to watch and the paddock is open to [Applause] all here fans can touch the Stars One
Black shirt one blue shirt but one visit to the merchandise tent thank you thank you very much Che is all it takes to know that this is a commercial bananza for the aisle and make no mistake that’s what it exists for it exists for economic reasons it exists to
Bring people to our Island and for no other reason it doesn’t exist because we like motorbikes we do like motorbikes but that’s not why it exists one rider was killed in this year’s TT 46-year-old Spaniard Raul Torres Martinez that there was just one death after the six Racers killed in 2022 was
A relief to organizers but also a reminder of the risk that has run through these winding roads for more than a century a lot of people don’t grasp just how Wild the event really is I mean I’m a part-time racer I can steer a bike okay but I’m not the level of
These guys you know I mean they do stuff that I just go I have no idea how you do it wow that’s bra yeah that’s hot in your mouth Peter Hickman is one of those guys this year while winning four races he set a new alltime speed record for a
Single lap this makes me feel alive makes you feel alive yeah you can’t just leave it like that you got expound explain what do you mean I think you can only really appreciate life if you’re putting yourself into places that risk [Applause] it
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Video “Isle of Man TT: The world’s most dangerous motorcycle race | 60 Minutes” was uploaded on 01/08/2024 to Youtube Channel 60 Minutes