McCallen talks injuries and successes on BBC Bikes Podcast published at 13:38 BST
Stephen Watson
BBC Sport NI lead presenter
Phillip McCallen won 11 IOM TTs including four in a week at the 1996 meeting
Phillip McCallen's record at the Isle of Man TT places him among the most successful road racers of all time.
Yet his career is equally defined by the scale of the injuries he survived - and the determination with which he returned to racing despite them.
Speaking to the BBC Bikes podcast at this year's TT, the 62-year-old reflected on a decade at the top of the sport in which he claimed 11 victories at the event while overcoming a catalogue of serious injuries.
He won four races in a week at the 1996 TT and holds the record for the number of individual race wins in a day at both the North West 200 and Ulster Grand Prix, with five at each.
Over the course of his career, McCallen suffered three fractured skulls, repeated shoulder breaks, a shoulder blade torn from his back, a broken back, a damaged pelvis, broken legs, broken arms, and severe injuries to both feet.
"There's very little I didn't break," he says. "I've been beaten to bits at times, but I always believed I'd be back on a bike," said McCallen.
One of the most serious incidents came at the Temple 100 in 1990. A heavy crash left McCallen unconscious, haemorrhaging behind the face and temporarily blind.
"My eyes filled with blood from the inside," he recalls.
"I couldn't see at all - nothing. Then bit by bit, the sight came back."
His face swelled dramatically due to internal bleeding, but he returned to racing as soon as doctors allowed. "I never thought, 'that's me finished.' Not once."
At the 1997 TT, McCallen was involved in one of the most dramatic crashes of his career. Battling five times world champion Joey Dunlop in the 250 race, he approached Quarry Bends at around 150mph when the bike tucked at high speed.
He slid across tarmac, kerbs, and grass, suffering deep friction burns as his leathers tore open.
"I could hear the crowd as I slid," he says. "You're calculating everything - what you might hit, where you might end up. The brain works faster than any computer."
His shoulder and arm were severely damaged, and he was left "very badly beaten up," as he puts it.
Despite this, McCallen passed a medical assessment two days later, completing press ups with one arm, and went on to finish second in Wednesday's 600 race before winning both Friday events including the blue riband Senior TT.
"I just needed 24 hours hidden away to repair the body," he says. "Sports people know how to fix themselves when they have to."
His injuries extended far beyond the Mountain TT Course. At Daytona in 1992, a front tyre failure at top speed ripped his shoulder blade from his back.
"The tyre exploded and cut the brake pipes clean off. I had no brakes at all. I hit the barrier and that was the shoulder blade gone."
At the Ulster Grand Prix, McCallen landed on a rock during a crash, splitting the same shoulder blade into three pieces. At the North West 200, he seriously damaged his foot as he slid along the road after a crash. "That was the end of my North West that year," he continued. "I'd ripped the side clean out of the foot."
McCallen believes the drive to return was rooted in instinct rather than bravado. "You don't think about stopping," he explains. "You think about how to get fit enough to race again. That is just the mindset."
Despite the severity of his injuries, he insists he never believed the sport would claim his life.
"I genuinely never once thought I would die racing."
Looking back, McCallen says the risks were outweighed by the rewards. "People would give their right arm to stand on that TT podium once. I was fortunate enough to stand 11 times."
Isle of Man TT - Phillip McCallen
