Isle of Man TT 2010 Monday 31 May

The start of TT2010 has mostly gone to plan. The old, faithful camper started even after a very cold winter with snow and I have Bridget with me after being here on my own last year. The only down sides are that the Mike Pumford 250cc Villiers I was to race at Billown had a gearbox fault that couldn’t be sorted. That stopped me from starting the Pre TT classic races. Secondly, Mike Pulman of North Drill failing for the 2nd year to get to the TT, this time due to a bike crash and a fall at work breaking the same collar bone twice.

The first TT practice was cancelled due to bad weather so we finally got underway on Monday night with a perfect evening, if a bit windy, for a couple of laps on the mountain.
The first 2 laps were on Easty’s Barnes Racing R1 and even with my head struggling to keep ahead of my eyes for the first lap and a half and an old rear tyre I still managed two respectable times. My fastest ever 1st practice at 117.8mph and 119.9mph.

The next 2 laps were on the Hallett Aviation Suzuki Supersport bike and from the off I had a visor problem that caused a stiff breeze to blow into my eyes making visibility a problem. I stopped after the first lap to try to fix the problem but on the 2nd lap it was just as bad. Considering this, the times were encouraging at 114.8mph and 115.2mph.

According to the results sheets, I was the 15th quickest in both the Superbike and Superstock and 16th quickest in the Supersport. There’s still some time in there when we’ve ironed some wrinkles and got my head up to speed but we have to remember everyone else has similar plans.