3. PHILLIP MCCALLEN
11-TIME TT WINNER, AND TOP SECRET FIREBLADE DEVELOPMENT RIDER
Anyone who ever witnessed Phillip McCallen racing on the roads will be unlikely to have forgotten the experience. Where some riders were notably smooth, deceptively quick, McCallen was fearsomely committed, standout fast. In the same way Michael Dunlop is today the man who seems to attack harder, use more road, roll off the least. It’s not about being ragged, but fully invested in victory.
Phillip began racing bicycles as a kid on a farm near Tandragee (of Tandragee 100 fame). Soon came a 50cc Suzuki, before long a 1000cc Suzuki: “I kept reading about my schoolmates Mark Farmer and Woolsey Coulter winning races, so I cut a deal with my boss to get Saturdays off and work Sundays, and got started with a 125. My first race was at Aghadowey in 1983. I got lost on the way there, missed practice, but still qualified for the final, and that was my first time on track.”
He was noticed. Noticed by Joey Dunlop’s manager, the late Davy Wood. “Davy took me under his wing until I felt confident to strike out on my own,” says Phillip. “By 1988, I was starting the season with strong, competitive bikes challenging Brian Reid, Steve Cull and Joey. It was a big year, I scored wins over them all to take seven Ulster and Irish titles.”
It was also the beginning of his illustrious Island career. He entered the 1988 Manx Grand Prix, won the Lightweight Newcomers’ Race and took the Lightweight Manx GP win on the same 250 Honda, both wins in record time.
Typically, 1989 was less good: “I had a particularly disastrous North West, all sorts of problems with my bikes,” says Phillip. “On the way home, by sheer chance, I called into Joey’s Bar in Ballymoney and Joey was there, out of action after a crash at Donington. We were both feeling sorry for ourselves, then Joey perked up and said, ‘You should be riding my bikes. I’m not going to be on them for a while’. Joey phoned Honda next day and, amazingly, they took me on.” A nod from Yer Maun was enough.
McCallen was drafted into the FireBlade development programme, “They wanted to really push the feedback, to get assessment from riders other than the regular development crew, so there were lots of security documents to sign. I’d have loved to have told all my mates about it, but I couldn’t say a word,” he laughs. “It was so different to anything that had gone before. Until you rode it you actually had no idea just what a leap it actually was. I rode it in Germany in 1991, tested it again at Assen under heavy security and that version was the final sign-off, as far as it went fo
