Dean Harrison’s habit of finishing on the podium at the Southern 100 continued this week as he claimed two third places on his YZF-R1M Superstock machine plus a superb win in the S&S Motors Supersport race on his YZF-R6 Yamaha. The Bradford man was lucky to walk away from a big crash in Tuesday evening’s wet practice session although it did rule out any chance of using his Superbike for the rest of the week.
The Mar-Train team worked throughout Wednesday to prepare their superstock machine for the Senior race and the 26-year-old duly rewarded them with a hard fought podium, finishing in third place.
Harrison followed that up on Thursday with another third place in the Corlett’s Trophies Solo race although this time the Yamaha UK man was able to compete with the leading BMW duo of Martin and Dunlop finishing less than two seconds off the win and lapping just outside the lap record.
Hopes were high for a Solo Championship win to round the week off but a stretched chain forced a retirement while holding third place.
In the Supersport class Harrison was in the same form that brought him a double for Mar-Train in 2014. In race one the Yorkshire man had built up a seemingly unsurmountable lead of six seconds only for the generator to fail on his R6 Yamaha on the last lap.
He made no mistake in race two however taking the lead on lap two and gradually pulling away from Ivan Lintin to win by just over two and a half seconds again lapping just one second off the lap record.
“Nice to get another win at the Southern, pity about the first 600 race but it was just another one of those things you can’t legislate for,” said Harrison.
“Really happy with the progress on the big bike, the boys have done a great job since the TT and the R1M is getting better and better every time I ride it. I made a mess of the Superbike on Tuesday night but we’ve come away with a couple of podiums and a win but more importantly a really competitive Superbike package.”
