McGuinness: If I lose 10kg, Mugen will give me TT Zero bike!

Isle of Man TT legend John McGuinness has entered a bet with his Mugen bosses that could see the reigning TT zero champion finally secure one of the electric machines for his own private collection – but only at a price!

“When I first asked, the man from Mugen just started pissing himself, and said ‘no, forget it.’ But I’ve been dragging on and on at them for four years now, so eventually they said ‘ok, you can have one if you lose 10 kilos before the TT.’

“I went down to Milton Keynes to their workshop for the weigh-in with about £30 of pound coins in my pocket, drank two litres of water and had two big breakfasts on the train. They chucked me on the scales and they were like ‘woaaaaaah’ when it went to like 90kg!

“I saw him in Macau though, he was there having a look around. He just slid up beside me and said ‘nothing has changed, then John? You are not serious to get the bike?’ and laughed!”

With the ultra-exotic machine – which McGuinness has now won twice and matched the pace of the front-running 650cc Lightweight TT machines on – both rare and among some of the most expensive machines being raced today, though, the 23-time TT winner admits that he’s even willing to go to extreme lengths!

“It’s a beautiful work of art, all carbon fibre and magnesium alloy parts. Basically it’s a MotoGP prototype with the engine replaced with an electric motor. The new one is even more trick – it might even be a little beyond me!

“They originally wanted the weigh-in to be the end of this month, but there’s no chance of that so soon after eating all that turkey after Christmas, so I’m going to try and put it off for as long as possible. I worked  it out though and it’s only about £8000 for liposuction, so if I get stuck it’s a lot cheaper than losing a million quid bike!”

See McGuinness and a whole host of BSB stars at this years MCN Carole Nash London Motorcycle Show on Feb 12-14. Advance Tickets are just £17