Big Eds Blog - The Isle of Man TT
With no MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship to keep me busy, the last couple of weeks I've occupied myself with this year's Isle of Man TT, I'm sure many of you did the same. The weather dampened proceedings somewhat, especially as it resulted in less practice time and in a year with a number of riders on new machinery it's fair to say they would have been after a little bit more track time.
However, we saw Michael Dunlop get on the new Suzuki GSX-R1000 and fire it to victory in the Senior race, posting a 132.903mph lap in the process - as he said at the NW200 if you want to win 'you need a Dunlop, and that's just the way it is' and new machinery wasn't going to stand in his way. He also won the only Supersport race on his MD Racing Carl Cox Yamaha, an event in which Hutchinson been dominant in previous years having won the last four Supersport TT races.
It wasn't an easy Isle of Man for all manufacturers, however. The new Honda Fireblade was labelled as a Jonah by Guy Martin, with John McGuinness' season cut short at the NW200 and with Guy himself finding a 'box full of neutrals' in the Superbike TT which saw him spit off the bike and not compete in the Senior TT as a consequence.
I've got to say my star performer of the IOMTT was MCE British Superbikes very own Peter Hickman. Even though he was unable to make it to the top step during the TT, he bagged a podium in every race he entered and with this being only his fourth year on the Island I really do expect big things from him in the years to come.
My best wishes go out to Ian Hutchinson who was having an impressive week with two wins to his name on his Tyco BMW, however a crash in the Senior resulted in an early departure with a broken femur. He's shown to the world that he's a fighter and I'm sure this will be no different, hopefully it's a speedy recovery!
Finally, three riders lost their lives on the course, and I send my best wishes out to the families of Alan Bonner, Davey Lambert and Jochem van den Hoek.
13.06.2017 - Big Ed
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