TT Round Up

Published on 10th June 2018

There are not enough superlatives to describe this year's Senior race on the Island Circuit. We walked up the mountain, literally, we visited the peak of Snaefell and watched the sidecars come through for their first lap from there. After that we hiked down the side of the mountain to watch near Black Hut and the Veranda. The leaders were shockingly fast through this section, riding as they would on a short course race, curb to curb, using all the road. Under braking the bikes were getting a little out of shape showing just how hard the riders were pushing. If someone had told me when I was at school that you would have a pocket sized mobile phone that could take incredible photos, connect to the internet (the what?), watch TV on, follow race live timeing while listening to the radio commentary etc etc I would not have believed it. Anyway my point is I took this photo not with skill but with technology.

We all know the outcome of the race. Dean was faster through the more traditional road race type sections Douglas to Ramsey and Peter was faster over the mountain on the more short circuit style roads. I spoke to Dean last night and although he said he was "over the moon" with the weeks result he thought he might have taken it if he hadn't been held up with back markers on the last lap. Our other coaches did not fair too well with mechanicals putting both Davo and Lee out of the race. Thankfully neither caused a crash.

We spent last night at Port St Mary again it seems amazing that even through the TT period off the circuit there are so many quiet spots where you can get away from the buzz of bikes and the madness of the races. Saying that, we had to follow a long diversion through the countryside to get here due to closed roads for the post TT races on the Southern 100 course. I had a pedal around the Southern on Thursday and I might just have a bash aroud the race in the next few years, time permitting.

I managed a pretty clear run over the Mountain yesterday which is still running one way. There were a lot of cars up there cruising over but thankfully they stayed to the left as I was overtaking around the outside on bends. I can understand how fast this section is now, even with heavy traffic there were sections where I was up to 120mph and the corners are sweeping fast bends rather than stop start types once you are past the Gooseneck.

We are heading up to the Motocycle Museum at Jurby today and then will be back in Douglas to drop our guest off for his ferry. We are not back until Tuesday and I am actually looking forward to getting back into my new role of Leeds City Councillor. Hopefully I will be able to achieve some changes but thankfully there is always racing to empty your mind and provide that total focus to forget real life. I am racing again with Wirral 100 at Anglesey 23/24th as Scarborough is cancelled. Can't wait for that.
I'll be visiting James in hospital next week so I will give you all an update on how he is then, generally as expected, the chemo is making him feel "shite but it's necessary". 

Don't forget to book onto our track training days, Dean H, Lee J and Davo will be coaching on some of the days as well as our other BSB superstars.

Drinkie

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