Mission Improbable: Boothy Takes On The Classic TT

Boothy’s done some daft things in his time, so when he spent £600 on a ZXR 750 almost as old as himself and decided to enter it in the Classic Superbike TT, nobody was surprised. Here’s how he got on…

- Boothy

It seemed like a good idea when I was sat in the pub with five or so pints sloshing round my belly, to start throwing bids at two-wheeled rust buckets left, right and center, and when I woke up in the morning and realized I’d bought myself a wretched example of a 1992 Kawasaki ZXR 750, I thought there was only one thing for it – The Classic Superbike TT! After a decent run at the (modern) Isle of Man TT earlier in the year, but not quite enough laps to satisfy my cravings due to the pants Manx weather, I thought the Classic would be a great way to get a few extra laps in, and to stand me in good stead for my assault on the TT next June.

What I didn’t realize was just how wretched the bike I had bought was going to be. When I went to pick it up, it wouldn’t start, it was absolutely filthy and smelt worse than a rat catcher’s dog. What had I bought? With only four weeks to go until the event (and one of those weeks was spent at the Ulster GP racing the modern race bike) we really had our work cut out if we were going to have it looking anything like a race bike at the Classic TT.

It wasn’t just a case of cleaning it up, lock-wiring the sump plug and sticking some race numbers on the thing; everything on the bike needed attention. The swingarm was completely seized, as were the chain adjusters and the rear caliper hangers. Everywhere you could put a spanner there were bolts that were snapped off, seized in or just pushed loosely in the hole with a bit of PTFE tape wrapped round them to hold them in (seriously). There was an inch of muddy oil coating every surface of the engine (which didn’t run, by the way), the loom had had a hacksaw through it, and the brakes felt like they had more air bubbles in them than a bottle of Fanta.