America's Cup - Dalton survives 100mph Isle of Man Classic TT crash

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 25 Aug 2017 Emirates Team New Zealand's CEO, Grant Dalton has walked away from a high speed crash in the Isle of Man Classic TT on Wednesday (NZT).

The CEO of the champion America's Cup team survived a 100mph(160kmh) crash after his bike seized.

'I'd just cranked into a corner up at a place called The Verandah and the bike seized and just fired me off the road,' Dalton told Stuff from the Isle of Man, which is a Crown dependency in the Irish Sea, and a corporate tax haven.

'I wasn't hurt at all. I just slid for a decent distance and got up again. The bike was alongside me and we ended up in the same spot.

'It's not a big deal, it's all part of it ... it just goes with the turf.'

Dalton estimated he was doing around over 100mph at the time of the incident.

Dalton told Duncan Johnston from Stuff.co.nz in a phone interview that the Isle of Man is 'a vicious place on machinery'.

Dalton said the damaged bike was looking 'a bit second hand' after the crash. But it was being repaired and he got back on his smaller bike to continue his qualifying quest.

He had just come in from completing three laps of the 60.3km course on his Classic Lightweight bike when he spoke to Stuff on Friday.

He had qualified both his bikes for the races in their classes which will be held on Saturday and Monday.

This is Dalton's third year of racing on the treacherous circuit which has claimed over 200 lives.

He failed to finish his first event in 2014, but in 2015 he qualified for the F1 Classic TT, completed the course and was awarded a prestigious finishers medal, clocking an average of 97mph for the four lap race - the speed includes time spent in the pits with a gravity fed fuel stop.

Fellow NZ rider Bruce Anstey has finished as top qualifier with the fastest time of the week on his Padgetts Motorcycles.com YZR 500 Yamaha, with a lap speed of 125.49mph.

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Dalton indulges in both the two and four wheel versions of motor sport, as he explained in an interview on the Hampton Downs website in January:

Dalton raced at Bathurst for the first time last year in his 1970 Chevrolet Camaro. The sailing supremo has been involved in the Central Muscle Cars category for the last four years and he enjoyed his weekend at the NZFMR.

“I finished 4th in the first race of the day I’m slowly coming to grips with the car,” says Dalton. “I’ve gone a bit better this weekend than I have done for a while. Motorsport is a passion for me. I wouldn’t call it an escape because I’ve got the best job in the world.”

“I’ve always been into motorbikes and I loved watching guys like Barry Sheene and Graeme Crosby. Graeme was one of the guys I looked up to growing up and now he helps me out with my bikes which is pretty cool. I’ve raced in the Isle of Man TT for the last three years and that’s an incredible experience. The people that do road racing over there are nuts in the nicest possible way and there’s nothing to compare to coming down Bray Hill on the TT course.”

Not even a rough day on the high seas in an America’s Cup yacht?

“That’s not scary,” says Dalton. “Bray Hill is scary. Even Bathurst wasn’t quite daunting as I thought it would be. You can only go so fast when you’re winding your way down the hill at Mt Panorama.”