William Dunlop has joined the newly formed Team National Motorcycle Museum Racing for the 2015 Classic TT Races presented by Bennetts. The museum, based in the West Midlands, is home to the largest collection of British Motorcycles in the world with over 100 marques including BSA, Ariel and of course Norton.
Dunlop will ride one of the museum's original and iconic Rotary Norton bikes from the 1992 British Championship season in the Motorsport Merchandise Formula 1 Classic TT Race on Monday 31st August 2015.
Dunlop has three podium finishes in the TT Races Supersport class in the last three years and also finished runner up in the inaugural Bennetts 500cc Classic TT Race in 2013.
The Rotary Norton really came to the fore in Steve Spray's 1989 British Championship winning campaign and the 1990 TT campaign that saw Trevor Nation and William's father Robert achieving podium positions in the Formula 1 TT Race with Robert also winning the North West 200 in the same year. However the bike is most famous for Steve Hislop's 1992 Senior TT win when he rode it to victory against the might of the work's Yamaha of Carl Fogarty.
Brian Crighton, the original Rotary Norton engineer, who will be joining Team National Motorcycle Museum for the Isle of Man project commented:
"This bike was originally designed and conceived for short circuit racing so we have a lot of work to do to adapt it for the challenges of the TT Mountain Course which is a unique and hard place to race. The challenge that we are facing is very similar to the challenge that the Norton faced in 1992 adapting Steve Hislop's bike."
