Wednesday 2 June 2010

Wednesday’s weather was another Isle of Man special – bright blue sunny skies and then banks of fog rolling in off the sea heralded by the fog horns in Douglas harbour. It settled down in time for roads to close on schedule at 6pm.

During the day we’d softened the rear suspension and tyres on the 600 and Easty gave Dobsy the benefit of his race wisdom. Easty is a fount of knowledge and each year Dobsy finds another bit starts to make sense for him. The most notable change today was Quarry Bends. The speed trap at Sulby is heavily influenced by how riders get out of Quarry Bends and the R1 went through at 184mph – 15mph faster than the night before. Lap times didn’t suffer either.

First out was the R1 again. This gives Dobsy a chance to get ahead of some of the slower riders that get out in front of him. As he flew across the start/finish onto lap 2 we saw he’d averaged 122.95mph – just a hair from his target for this year of 123. On the second lap there was some traffic and sun strike so the lap speed was 122.8mph.

Tony had the 600 warmed up ready to go so after a drink and a visor change Dobsy was away.

The first lap was a solid 118.1mph. The second was much the same as the flying start advantage was cancelled out by too many bug splats obscuring Dobsy’s view. He’s had some visor issues and hasn’t got tear-offs yet.

At the end of the session the R1 still held the 11th quickest speed trap figure. After dinner we collected the timesheets from the race office and found that, over the 3 practices, Dobsy is the 22nd quickest Supersport, 17th Superbike and 14th Superstock just ahead of Bruce Anstey! We’re going to get Bruce to sign that one and we’ll frame it! Of course, a lot will change between now and the end of race week but it is definitely our best start to an IoM TT.

As always, we are indebted to Dave East and Tony Stanwell for their tireless mechanical work and Ian Barnes, Mike of North Drill and Neil of Hallett Aviation for their support. Special thanks should also go to Great Nick for the fantastic lunch and the Doc for inviting us to share the maiden cranking of his drag engine.