2016 Isle of Man TT races kicked off today.

Over the past couple years I have become infatuated with the TT and road racing in general. I have been more excited about this years TT than I have any racing event in recent years.

SPOILER ALERT

Today was the first race day after a week of practices.

The Superbikes went out first for a 6 lap race. Michael Dunlop and Ian Hutchinson had been the two fastest through practice with near record setting times.

Dunlop set off absolutely on the limit. He was riding like a man possessed. On his first lap, from a standing start, he broke the all out course record. He broke it again on his second lap. The first ever lap with faster than a 133 average, and the first ever under 17 minutes. As of now the lap record is 133.39mph in a time of 16 minutes 58.25 seconds. He beat Hutchy by 19 seconds. Just amazing. What's even more amazing is that after the race Dunlop said the 134 was definitely going to happen and 135 was possible.

Hutchinson was pretty demoralized after seeing his first pit board, Dunlop had already pulled out 4 seconds on him to the first pit board and had a little over 8 seconds on him after the first lap. Hutchy finished second 54 seconds in front of 44yo John McGuinness.

For those that don't know this is Hutchy had to switch his bike to a right side shifter after completely destroying his left leg in a British Superbike race that took him 5 years to recover from. Simply astonishing.

Unfortunately, the TT has claimed two lives so far this year.

27yo, Side car driver Dwight Beare was killed in the first race of the week. His passenger received a broken ankle and is in stable condition.

50yo, Rider Paul Shoesmith lost his life in a practice session.

Here's hoping for no more tragedies this week and for more records to be broken!

Coverage of the Isle of Man starts at 10pm central standard time on the Velocity channel.

In reply to stuart in mn:

Damn, guess I should have included a spoiler alert for those that haven't seen it yet.

The Isle of Man TT never fails to impress and terrify me. Those riders have to have bowling ball sized stainless steel balls.

Best Motorsports event of the year, every year imho.

I will witness the TT before I die. It is a moral imperative.

Hutchy was on a mission in the supersport (600) race. Finished 13 seconds ahead of Dunlop. Unfortunately, Dunlops bike was found to have had some illegal modifications done in his engine and was eliminated from the results. The team has had some engine troubles throughout practice week and they decided to stick an old engine in for the race. The modification was a coating on the cam buckets and was legal at the time the engine was built. The regulations changed for this year and the team didn't catch it.

Lot's of durability issues in the sidecar race. Lot's of creativity in those rigs. Many are designed and built by the rider, from the chassis to the bodywork. And there is no other place to test them to see if the design is going to work on the big TT course. Nothing like having worked a year or more on a new design, and your first clue if it's going to work or not is flat out at 160 mph on a public road through a little town on an island.

I'm looking forward to seeing the electric bikes run on Wednesday. Those guys are truly pushing the boundaries with cutting edge technology.

Dunlop's Superbike lap looked like as close as physically possible to 10/10ths for the entire 37 miles. Well heck it looked like 11/10ths, a 37 mile long crash that just somehow happened to have the bike go the same direction as the road. Them fellers are like the guys in the WRC... not the same as the rest of us.

Jay_W wrote: Well heck it looked like 11/10ths, a 37 mile long crash that just somehow happened to have the bike go the same direction as the road.

That is an apt description. I cringed and turned my head a couple times.

Hutchy is a beast! Setting a new lap record in the superstock race on the first lap. He averaged 133.098mph almost 2 seconds faster than the previous lap record set by Michael Dunlop back in 2013. Unfortunately the battle that we all wanted to see disappeared when Michael Dunlops gear shifter came loose putting and end to his challenge.

Modern motorcycles are amazing things. The Superstock class is basically a motorcycle that you can walk out of the showroom with and has very minor modifications. Now take that bike out on a 37 mile course made of public roads, not just any public roads, but narrow twisty European public roads and you can average 133mph over those thirty seven miles. That is only 3 tenths off of the all out lap record set by Michael Dunlop on a Superbike which has something like 60 more horse power.

Simply amazing.

Modern sportbikes have been this way for approx 15 years or so.

Exhaust, bodywork, sprocket change, race gas, tune..........go racing. In the lower classes that is.

They are incredibly durable. I sold my R6 with 30k miles on it. It had been down twice, on the track multiple times and saw the 15k redline MULTIPLE, MULTIPLE times on a daily basis.

Those bikes must have some serious custom seats to accommodate the giant brass balls. Of course, racing so they were probably swapped for titanium or Kevlar.

I remember reading something about comparing the '72 240 Z and the '72 CB750, and then extrapolating what the 300 ZX woulda been like if it had followed the same curve as the CBR 1000 RR... omg