It’s been a strange TT for me so far this year and I’m struggling to really get into it, which isn’t like me so to be sitting here now with two top six finishes is pleasing, particularly given the lap times that are being put in at the front this week.
With a few issues during practice week, we had a standard road bike engine fitted for the Superbike race on Saturday and whilst it’s not slow by any means, it does lack that little bit compared to a fully tuned engine.
There’s a lot going on at the moment and I’m just not quite riding at my best so laps of 128-129mph are where I am at the moment but I ended up fifth and a finish like that in a TT race is a mega result, especially for everyone connected with the Bathams Racing team.
I was a bit disappointed in myself though as I felt I could have ridden better but I had no moments at all and just rode my own race so it was a good start to race week and gave us plenty to build on. It was a similar outcome in Monday’s Superstock race and I was finding it hard to concentrate so sixth place wasn’t what I wanted especially as my first pit board after Ballaugh on the opening lap said ‘P3’.
When I saw that I told myself to get stuck in and have a go but although I managed a couple of 130mph+ laps, I made a few small mistakes, being in the wrong gear on a couple of occasions and I just didn’t feel particularly confident with all sorts of things going through my mind like what I was going to have for dinner!
I was a bit slow coming into the pit stop and thought about pulling in at one stage as I simply didn’t feel like I was riding very well but I plugged away and got to the finish. The front three were away with it but it was close between Davo (Johnson), James (Hillier) and myself but they gradually got the better of me and sixth was where I ended up.
The TT is mega-competitive now and I can’t believe the lap times the likes of Pete, Dean and Michael have been doing so it’s almost a race of two halves now – those three at the front and the rest of us going for fourth. So whilst I was a bit disappointed, sixth place is a solid enough finish and it’s obviously good for the team to have taken two top-six finishes in the first two races.
I’ve still got three races to go with just the Senior for the Bathams team but I’ll be busy on Wednesday with the TT Zero and Lightweight races. The Mugen was strong straight away and I did a 116mph lap first time out but I had a moment through the Bottom of Barregarrow on Friday evening and it felt like it had broke in half so I had to pull in at the 13th Milestone. We’re switching to what the team ran last year whilst the Paton overheated on the practice lap yesterday (Monday) so we’ll take a look at that today.
It hasn’t been trouble free but that’s the TT for you so we’ll just go out tomorrow and give it our best shot.
