This year’s Isle of Man most thrilling yet

Practice week

Michael Rutter and local rider Dan Kneen were the first to leave the line, followed in quick succession by Guy Martin, James Hillier, Bruce Anstey, Gary Johnson, Ian Hutchinson, Ivan Lintin, Ryan Farquhar, Keith Amor and Cameron Donald, with Lintin the exception to the norm on
his Supersport mount.

Martin was first to complete a lap at 122,77mph, with Hutchinson marginally quicker at 127,967mph and Johnson the only other rider to lap at more than 127mph from a standing start. Michael and William Dunlop both pitted, with Michael’s Milwaukee
Yamaha smoking and it was the outright lap record holder Bruce Anstey who posted the best lap of the night at 128,641mph (17min 35,865sec) on the Valvoline Racing Padgett Honda as he overhauled Hutchinson on the road, the latter lapping at 128,30mph on the PBM Kawasaki.
Anstey also went to the top of the Supersport leaderboard with a lap of 125,218mph ahead of Martin (123,081mph) on the Smiths Triumph and Johnson (Mar-Train Yamaha) 121,678mph.

On the big race day of the TT the weather once again played a trump card with 120km gusting winds and sporadic rain. The day’s events were cancelled and finally the premier event ran over six laps in blissful conditions on Sunday.
In a thrilling race it was Bruce Anstey who finally captured the Superbike win he has desired for so long in a dramatic RST sponsored race on the Sunday afternoon.

The Windsor-based New Zealander, who recently celebrated his 46th birthday, delighted his legions of fans across the globe with a flawless ride on the Valvoline Racing by Padgett’s Motorcycles Honda Fireblade.

It was an extremely close race at the front between him and Yorkshireman Ian Hutchinson, who led for more than two-thirds of the 226,38 mile distance on Paul Bird’s Kawasaki ZX. Michael Dunlop looked to be in line for a podium place in the closing stages until he had a coming together with Scott Wilson of Burton, Cumbria at the Nook, less than one mile from the chequered flag.
The narrowest section of the entire course was briefly blocked and only three riders had actually crossed the finish line before the race was red-flagged. Three more were between the Nook and the end, but did make the finish. Three of the six were in the winners’ enclosure.“I can’t believe it,” said a clearly delighted Anstey.

“I sat at the bottom of the return road to wait while Hutchie crossed the line to make certain I had it won. I didn’t have many pit boards around the place, so I wasn’t absolutely sure.” Anstey won in a race record time of 1 hour 45 29 902sec (an average speed of 128,739mph) beating Michael Dunlop’s previous record from 2003 by 0 078 of a second. His final lap was 17m to 10 587s (131,789mph) to secure victory by 10 977 seconds from Hutchinson. James Hillier, who led for the opening lap on the Quattro Plant Much-Off Kawasaki, regained third place at the finish following Michael Dunlop’s crash.

Organisers were busy rearranging for races to be run four days in a row because of the lack of practice and qualifying times from some parts of the paddock. A thrilling Monster Energy Supersport race was totally dominated by Ian Hutchinson who put his injury nightmare behind him as he returned to the top of the rostrum for the first time in five years at the TT. The “Bingley Bullet” clinched a dream win in the opening Monster Energy Supersport race of prodigy star Keith Flint’s Team Traction Control Yamaha to seal his ninth victory on the 37.73 mile Mountain course.
Hutchinson’s journey back to the TT summit has been an emotional roller coaster for the 35-year-old, who famously won five races in a week in 2010 to make history before suffering a career-threatening crash in a British Supersport race later that year.

Hutchinson who was in tears at the post race press conference said, “I was always going to become a TT race winner again some day. The race went really well and the Team Traction Control Yamaha is just a dream to ride for I felt like I was out delivering pizzas or some thing, I felt that comfortable during the race.” “Starting as number nine it wasn’t ideal, I think some people didn’t think I would be capable of running at the front again, so I got dropped down the numbers this year but I caught Guy Martin and then I got out behind him in the pit stop, but apart from that it
was pretty good.

Sidecars

These wheeled racers now feature real state-of-the-art technology and with the top-10 outfits in superfast formation, spectators were to see some close racing coupled with the normal break-neck overtaking manoeuvres. The first leg went to the Birchell brothers on their LCR Manx Gas machine with an eight-second advantage over Dave Molyneux on the Suzuki DMR. Dave coaxed the sidecar home with a destroyed wheel bearing as John Holden and Dan Sayle took the final podium spot on yet another LCR machine. Race two, however, saw Molyneux and Benjamin Binns take the lap record to an all-time high of 117mph as he blitzed the opposition in the second leg.

Bennetts Lighweight TT

This event is designed for beginner riders on 650cc machines in twin cylinder form. For most it is dominated by superfast Kawasaki machinery, and the race only does three full laps of the circuit. Specialist for this division was Ivan Linton who dominated the race on his CF Kawasaki moto machine winning the event in just
57 minutes, but his race-long tussle with James Hillier on another Kawasaki was lost by just eight seconds to the winner. A surprise was Michael Rutter finishing third on a Patten team LR Kawasaki.

Pokerstars Senior TT

The final six-lap race, the Senior race of the week closed the curtain on probably the most successful TT race week ever. The island had attracted a record crowd as well as bikers from across the globe to take on the TT spectacle. John McGuinness made no mistakes to win the big one on a bike that Honda had made very few changes to for the last six years. Winning his 24th TT, the 46-year-old McGuinness endured pressure from the weeks multiple four-time TT winner, Ian Hutchinson on a Paul Bird motorsport Kawasaki. Amazingly, this team was only formed a few weeks before the
TT started and boy, were they happy with this result.