| News from the Colonies | Isle of Man
Luke’s Alfa Spider tailing us was the Brera based car, not
Hoffman’s classic, with a humble 2.2 litre four-pot in the
nose, but it was gamely hanging on as we tore up the wet
mountainside; his nervous navigator simply closed his eyes
and clutched his manbag in terror. With RWD, ancient tyres, no
traction control and colossal turbo-lag, Rudge, the Movember‘tached Yorkshireman, showed off his balls of Sheffield steel by
charging his ageing piece of Italian exotica around the sodden
circuit in hot pursuit.
Unlike the UK there are no speed cameras on Mann’s rural
A-roads. They’d be pointless, as there is no island-wide speed
limit; after you pass the last ‘national speed limit’ sign there
ceases to be any speed restriction at all. However, today we
agreed that unleashing every one of the JCW’s 208 horses in the
drizzle and thick fog of Snaefell Mountain would not have been
very clever. Instead Rich suggested I popped on some borrowed
waterproofs and stationed myself in a bridge in the driving
ice-cold rain while he cranked up his heated Recaros for a few
“flyby snaps”. Half an hour and thirty drive-bys later Rich finally
stopped to collect me; hypothermic and soaked to the skin I’d
long since stopped shooting - five minutes longer and I’d have
been building a primitive shelter out of the nearby remnants of
34 | MotorPunk October 2013