The Fairy Bridge figured prominently in my synopsis.
I flew back to Kansas City and crafted a synopsis for Grant and Kravitz to use when pitching Riding Man to a film studio. The storyline connected many of the key elements from Riding Man but layered in a lot of new material–scenes pulled from other parts of my life, scenes inspired the real experiences of other TT Newcomers, and some plausible fiction. There was a love interest drawn from my life after the TT.
The process took a few weeks. My wife was initially enthusiastic (partly because now there was a character based on her) but she gradually chafed at the amount of time I devoted to a project that she doubted would ever get made. I was sanguine about our chances, but given the potential payday, even a 1% chance was worth pursuing. And Peter Riddihough told me that another writer friend of his who’d optioned a few stories to Hollywood. Even though none of those were ever made, the guy still pulled in a lot more money than I could make writing about motorcycles.
Kravitz gave some notes, but mostly I worked with Grant who loved the underlying story. For his part, Grant began building a simple web site with information about the project. He was burning to attend the next TT, but it was still almost a year away.
After bouncing a few drafts back and forth, we settled on this synopsis...
Mark, age 8, sits in his room, surrounded by motorcycle toys. He flips the pages of an illustrated encyclopedia, and comes across the British Isles. He stares at a map where a racing motorcycle is superimposed on the tiny Isle of Man. He realizes that the Island is totally devoted to motorcycle racing. It's the beginning of a lifelong fascination.
At 14, he sits in the back of a classroom, reading a motorcycle magazine hidden in a textbook. In his imagination, Mark drops into one of the photos, racing with TT stars of the day. When the teacher asks him a question, he's completely stumped. She warns him that he's clever, but if he doesn't stop daydreaming he'll never amount to anything.
At 40, he's a successful ad agency creative director. The money's good, but the closer he gets to the top of the agency heap, the less 'creative' the job. It's all about schmoozing, pitching business, and managing his staff. Home life's no relief, either; his wife's a big marketing executive and their social life's a round of dinners and parties that always turn into working sessions. In meetings he glances down at his iPhone and checks motorcycle racing results.
His real creative energies – and a lot of his income – are poured into motorcycle racing. It's a hobby in name only... He's in the gym at dawn, ordering parts on his lunch break, and safety wiring his bike late into the night. On the weekend, he's in a swirl of colorful leathers, noise, and rider's bravado; along with the occasional ex-racer in a wheelchair providing a grim reminder of the sport's dangers. There's an 'over 40' class he's eligible for, but he races – and often beats – up and coming 20-somethings.
Over on the Isle of Man, the TT races are on, and that's a topic of conversation in the pits. He wins that weekend, after an exhausting battle that leaves him soaked in sweat – too tired to get off his bike until his mechanic, Paul Smith, arrives to help get it on the stand. As they pack up, Paul points out that he's picked up enough points to qualify for an 'Expert' license; that means he's now eligible to apply for a TT entry. Mark admits that he's crazy about motorcycle racing... but not that crazy. Late that afternoon he’s awarded a couple of trophies, and drives home alone. In the wee hours, only the neighbor's barking dog notes his return. In the morning, his wife doesn't even ask how he did.
On his office wall, there's a map of the Isle of Man. During another meeting, he takes aspirin with his coffee. As they adjourn, he groans a little as he gets out of his chair. Are these race weekends getting harder and harder, or is something else? When he finally goes to a doctor, then a specialist, he learns that he has lupus. The doctor warns him that the drugs he's prescribed increase the risk of internal bleeding from any injury – he can't believe anyone would race motorcycles while taking them. Mark finally has to face the loss of the one thing he loves.
He tries to talk to his wife about a last, great race – on the Isle of Man. She just rolls her eyes. She's enthusiastically climbing the corporate ladder as a marketing executive, and thinks motorcycle racing is a waste of money. She suggests that golf, instead, would advance his career.
But if anything, he's more committed to racing. He enters a couple of national championship races. When his friends ask if he's trying to turn pro, all he'll admit is that he wants the challenge.
But improving his racing resume also improves his chances of getting a TT entry – if he ever applies for one. Then, one night over another dinner Mark has prepared, his wife serves up an ultimatum. She's going to accept another job in a different state; he can give up his own job – and the local championship he's winning – and come with her or she'll divorce him. Rather than make it an argument about racing, he tells her that the agency can't function without him, and he won't let his department down.
Once she's gone, he stops fighting it: he's got a piece of unfinished business as a motorcycle racer, and it's on the Isle of Man. Despite his frustration at the agency, they treat him well and he feels guilty about leaving. He purposely hires a rival creative director who he knows wants to take over his job. Then he quits his job, sells off his half of their stuff, ending with a big garage sale of the last junk.
He cashes out his 401(k), and arrives on the Isle of Man carrying a backpack. The next couple of weeks are spent getting a local phone, finding a rental, and introducing himself to the chairman of the TT organizing committee. He's a long way from home, alone. Many of the locals are skeptical; he's far from the first such pilgrim. Other guys have come over, and not even been offered an entry; or got entries but failed to qualify. He might not even clear the medical.
Winter sets in dark, cold, and wet; his joints hurt like hell. He trained on a bicycle back. home, and plans to study the course and keep fit by doing that here. They don't call it 'The Mountain Course' for nothing. The first time he tries to pedal over the pass, a gust blows him to a complete stop and he falls over, gasping, right at a cairn commemorating a dead racer. He warms up in a pub where the locals seem as cold and brooding as the weather. The only upside is that his Island diary, which is being published in a motorcycle magazine back home, is generating more reader mail than anything they've ever published.
One otherwise bleak day, he strikes up a conversation on a bus with Mary, a pretty Manx woman. She puts her hand on his arm to interrupt him, as they're about to cross Fairy Bridge. All the locals say, 'Hello, fairies,' but Mark scoffs.
“All the proper racers,” she admonishes, “say hello to the fairies.” He checks his mail daily hoping to get confirmation from the TT, instead he gets a letter he doesn't want: the final tally of his divorce means that after he's paid his lawyer, he's almost out of money. He does the math and realizes that after the TT, he'll be flat broke.
The next time he's passing by the Fairy Bridge, he asks the bus driver to stop and let him off.
Hundreds of notes have been pressed into little cracks between the stones of the bridge, or hang off a tree that leans over the stream; the sun catches them, like leaves. He reads a few –distracted every now and then by a splash or a strange rustle of leaves. When he looks up, he sees nothing. The notes ask the fairies to help someone overcome an illness, or find work, or love. He puts each note carefully back in its place.
When he flags down the next bus, Mary's on it again. He learns that she was born on the island but left before she was twenty. She was a competitive ballroom dancer, and then studied yoga in India. She returned to her family home a few years ago to take care of her aging dad.
He buys a motorcycle at Padgett's – a legendary dealership that's sponsored many TT winners.
He becomes fast friends with the manager, Steve, whose own racing career was cut short by injury. When the weather's foul they work on Mark's bike, gradually preparing it for the race. If the weather's good they walk the course – Mark fills his notebook with sketches and notes, corner by corner. He meets several eccentric and charming locals. Steve shows Mark the many memorials to riders who've been killed racing in the TT. One day, they climb over a stone wall into a glade where Steve carefully cleans a plaque. “I'll tell you what,” he says. “I don't want to be cleaning your memorial here.”
“If I have to have a memorial, ” Mark replies. “This is where I want it to be.”
For Mary, the course isn't lined with memorials but with magical places. She shows him the wishing rock at Glen Helen – a spot where, she explains, the fairies are particularly adept at reading minds. She scolds him as he sits on the rock, telling him that wishing he’d win the TT just makes a mockery of the fairies, since no one ever wins it their first time out. He wonders whether she can read his mind, too.
One clear evening, as they stroll on a deserted beach, she points to the lights of Blackpool, off on the horizon. It's the site of the world's top ballroom competition, and her greatest moments as a dancer. In the fading light, she teaches him to waltz with just the lapping waves keeping time.
She can tell that his joints are stiff – a consequence of his lupus. Over the next couple of months she puts him on a yoga-inspired stretching routine. He teaches her to ride a motorcycle.
As the TT nears, Paul Smith flies over. Mark's little team is pitted next to a bully – the mechanic for a pair of newcomers from South America. Mark, Paul, and Steve call him “Bullet-Head” butnot to his face! Mark returns wide eyed from the first official practice. At racing speed it's insanely narrow and bumpy. Worse, with the tires and suspension he can afford, the bike's frighteningly unstable.
Paul applies years of racetrack knowledge to find a stable setup, but Steve is sure that 'real roads' racing takes a completely different approach. And they know something Mark doesn't – there's already been a fatality, and the cause of the crash was the same kind of steering instability that plagues their bike.
In the next session, Guy Jeffries, the ‘official’ Padgett’s rider, passes Mark. In his racer's 'Zen' state of concentration, Mark sees a single drop of oil hit his windscreen then notices more drops hitting the star's rear tire. Jeffries has no idea anything's wrong. For a minute or two that seem eternal, Mark desperately tries to catch him and warn him, but Jeffries is too fast. As he disappears around a bend, he crashes hard. Now, Mark takes desperate evasive action to avoid the rider, but the smashed race bike caroms between walls and telephone poles, directly into Mark's path.
A helicopter lands to pick the star up. Mark was knocked out, but comes to as he is bundled into the chopper. They fly to Nobles Hospital while the race continues below. At the hospital, ER doctors frantically work to save the more injured rider. The only people paying attention to Mark are Paul and Steve, who've heard of the crash on the radio and rushed to the hospital.
Steve's furious; he thinks that Paul's set-up has caused Mark to crash. It's only when Mark, still a little delirious, mumbles something about trying to catch and warn Jeffries, that they realize it was no one's fault. But they face an anxious night; Paul tells Steve about the blood-thinning drugs Mark's been taking, and they debate whether or not to tell the doctors. They know that if they do, Mark will never be allowed back on the course.
Mark's still a little shaky when he's checked out of hospital. In the pits, Paul's despondent that they don't have the parts or time to repair the bike. Steve's offended that Mark never told him about the lupus. He's glad Mark didn't bleed out as a result of internal injuries, and now doesn’t want him to ride. Mark explains that he's been feeling better than he has in years and that he'd stopped taking the drugs, which is probably the only reason he cleared the medical. Steve goes back to Padgett's and argues that Mark should be given Guy Jeffries' spare bike to ride. When Jeffries awakens, in the Hospital, and learns that Mark crashed trying to warn him, he agrees.
By Wednesday afternoon, Mark's been cleared to ride by the race doctor, but he's only got a few more chances to qualify. Adding insult to injury, 'Bullet Head', the mechanic from the adjacent team, suggests that Mark's crash was his own fault. Mark vows to, at least, beat his riders. Mary again scolds him – that's a good way to get yourself killed. She tells him this isn't a fight between riders, the way he raced in the 'States, it's a dance with the course, in which it leads and he follows.
Now with limited practice time, he needs to draw on all he's learned this year. He returns to the wishing rock, where he visualizes the entire race, corner by corner. He qualifies for the race at the last opportunity. Finally, he races in his first TT and has a transcendent experience – not falling into the photo, but rising out of it. The crows flying over the course watch him and then it's as if he's up there with them, looking down on himself. Amazingly, he wins the award as the top 'Newcomer' despite having missed half the practice, the announcer notes that the fairies were really looking out for him.
After the TT, the Island's quiet again. Luckily – because Mark's flat broke – when he files his last report with the magazine, they offer him a job. On the way to the ferry, Mary and Mark pass by the shop. Steve's rebuilding Mark's race bike. He asks if he should crate it and send it home with him once it's finished. Mark tells him to sell it, and send him the money. They make one last stop at Fairy Bridge, where they see a child Mary recognizes – one of her neighbors – tuck a piece of paper between the stones. When the girl's gone, Mark reads her note, which asks only for a new dress.
Back home, he starts working at his dream job – albeit one that baffles his friends in the ad business, since he's taking a 75% pay cut. Despite being strapped by his TT debts, he buys a dress for the little girl, and mails it off to Mary, with instructions to deliver it unseen. His doctor is amazed by his remission, but when they keep monitoring his condition, they realize it's returning. The doctor is sure that something in the Manx environment had saved him; something missing in L.A.
In the shop, Steve's putting the finishing touches on Mark's bike when he shows up again, carrying the same backpack he had the first time he arrived on the Island. He rides to the Fairy Bridge. In the gloom under the arch, well out of sight, he searches for a loose stone, and hides his finisher's medal.
While he's under there, Mary drives by and notices his bike. She stops at the post office where, sitting in her car, she texts Mark a message: “Looks lk Steve sold ur bike”. Just saw it at Fairy Bridge. On her way home, she detours past the kid's house and drops off the dress. When she pulls up to her house, Mark's bike is in the driveway. He's there.
Before sending the final draft to the producers, I emailed it to my friend Peter Riddihough who replied, “I can’t believe I’m writing this, but maybe you do have a feature here.”
Next: We add a few producers, and catch a break.