Trackside Tuesday: Bump in the Road

Bruce Anstey comes in for another nose-dive landing at Ballaugh bridge during the Superstock TT race. The 42-year-old had just won the Supersport event earlier in the day by the second smallest margin of victory in the history of the TT, a mere .77 seconds over Cameron Donald. His TT wins tally is now up to nine.

Despite having photographed road racing for the last few years this was my first time witnessing road bikes going airborne, at least intentionally. While Ballaugh bridge is a relatively slow part of the course, the added element of a jump alone was enough to provide a substantial challenge to me as a first-time visitor to the TT.

As with documenting short circuit racetracks, I always need to re-calibrate my brain to compensate for the oftentimes profound differences in speed between backmarkers and front runners. At Ballaugh bridge, there is also jump height and jump distance metric to factor in. Toss in the fact that the jumps ramp up from behind a blind corner and it all becomes somewhat of a hit or miss situation, with misses decidedly being the norm.

After spending two laps (translation: over half an hour) trying to capture this moment, this photo was more or less the only one of its kind to turn out the way I wanted to. They say practice makes perfect, so I guess that just means I’ll just have to come back here again next year. I hope.

Dan Lo is a motorsport photographer who covers AMA Superbike, World Superbike, and MotoGP. His online portfolio is at CornerSpeedPhoto.com and he can also be found on Facebook and Twitter. For this year, Dan is looking to expand his coverage to the Isle of Man TT via Kickstarter. A big ‘”thank you” to everyone who donated, and helped send Dan to this year’s TT.