{"id":643586,"date":"2026-05-01T21:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T21:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:52:09","slug":"ex-bsb-rider-gets-isle-of-man-tt-chance-via-new-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643586\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-BSB rider gets Isle of Man TT chance via new initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Former BSB rider Franco Bourne will make his Isle of Man TT debut this year after taking part in a new initiative in 2025.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Bourne will race for the Team ILR squad run by Ian Lougher at the 2026 Isle of Man TT <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/road-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">road races<\/a>. This is despite him not racing the Manx Grand Prix, which has traditionally been the route to the TT for most riders.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Instead, Bourne \u2013 who has raced in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/bsb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BSB<\/a> and the National Superstock Championship in recent seasons \u2013 has gone via the new Pilot Lap initiative that was introduced in 2025.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The initiative saw riders last year riding in a controlled environment on the TT course under the guidance of Milky Quayle and other rider liaison officers.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe lap helped him understand its demands before making an informed decision on future plans, from reading the road and identifying reference points to the importance of judgement and process alongside speed,\u201d the Isle of Man TT says of the Pilot Lap initiative.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">With Team ILR, Bourne is slated to race the Superstock and Sportbike classes aboard a Honda CBR1000RR-R and Paton S1-R, respectively.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe\u2019re delighted to be supporting Franco\u2019s [Bourne] move into pure road racing,\u201d said Ian Lougher, Team ILR team principal.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHe\u2019s a rider with real potential and the right attitude, and our aim is to give him the guidance and environment to develop further.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe experience he\u2019s gained so far and the steps he\u2019s taking to learn the Mountain Course align with how we nurture and encourage up\u2011and\u2011coming talent. We\u2019re looking forward to a busy and rewarding 2026 together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Franco Bourne added: \u201cThe Pilot Lap in 2025 was really good in helping me understand more about what the TT demands. That experience made the decision clear, and now it\u2019s about coming back to the Island well prepared. I am already looking forward to TT 2026 under the mentorship of road racing legend Ian Lougher and everyone at Team ILR.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former BSB rider Franco Bourne will make his Isle of Man TT debut this year after taking part&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,28425,85],"class_list":["post-643586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-road-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}