Phil Crowe produced his best ever performance at the Isle of Man TT races in yesterday’s Superbike encounter, with the Market Rasen rider coming home in an excellent ninth place on the Handtrans/John Chapman Racing BMW.
Having consistently lapped above 128mph during practice week, Crowe had put himself on the top ten leaderboard and converted his excellent form into a result on race day.
An opening lap of 127.041mph put him in 16th place and with laps in excess of 128mph on both laps two and four, he was up into eighth with just two laps to go. Despite dropping back to 11th on lap five, a superb final lap of 129.957mph saw him take the aforementioned ninth place although he felt a top six finish was a possibility.
“I’m happy enough with ninth place but we had a few issues during the race and my laps after each pit stop weren’t the best,” Crowe told bikesportnews.com. “It wasn’t the pit stops themselves where I lost time, I think it was more me taking a while to get back up to speed and into my rhythm after them and if it hadn’t been for that, fifth place might have been on the cards.”
Crowe is in his fifth year now at the TT, making good progress each year, particularly twelve months ago when he took three top twenty finishes and recorded his first 128mph+ lap. That saw him become one of the seeded riders in 2018, something that he feels has benefited him considerably.
“Being a seeded rider has helped no end as you get a lot more space on the track and aren’t encountering as much traffic. That can be a big issue during practice week but this year I’ve been setting off a lot earlier and the clear track is a big benefit.
“Losing five and a half stone has helped too and I made a few mistakes yesterday so I think a lap over 131mph is a possibility if I can smooth things out a bit. The Superbike suits me more than the Stocker as I like a more rigid bike and slick tyres and because of my size, the treaded tyres tend to ‘bend’ a bit’.
“We’ve got a few chassis issues with the Stocker but I had a decent run on that on Saturday evening as I did on the 600 and I’m hoping for a top 15 finish in the latter tomorrow.”
