Where legends live on..

We move smooth

It was 1978, Mick’s comeback and my mate Gordon Jones’ Island racing debut. In the bar on the ferry Gordon spotted Terry and although we didn’t know him to speak to we introduced ourselves and had an entertaining four hours with him and his mate, Tom Barnes.

They kindly offered to meet us the next evening at the Palatine and took us for a lap in Tom’s Opel Ascona to learn the course. “If you can see the horizon all the way to Ballacraine then it’s flat out,” said Terry (Tom was driving).

After quite a fast white knuckle ride I commented that Tom seemed to know his way around rather well. “Oh, I’ve never been here before,” said Tom, “I just trust Terry!”

Later that week Terry turned up at our garage, with the seat from his good friend Mike Hailwood’s Martini Yamaha after the scrutineers had failed it for being too long. We cut it down and re-fibre glassed it and it became, Team Martini Hailwo.

We had a great fortnight with Terry; he even treated us to a Manx kipper afternoon tea, with his mum, in the restaurant on the return ferry.

Gordon raced in a few solo TTs, then sidecar TTs, won the F2 sidecar Southern 100 in 1989, and finished second in last season’s F350 sidecar championship, all with his wife Julie in the chair.

Cheers Grote, you really did ‘move smooth’.

Mal Corfield
Arscott
Shropshire