IOM 2014 - Day 3 - A Good Start

The whole day was sunny and dry but with a cold wind. Temp hovered around 13 degrees all day. All looked good for first practice. Unfortunately, all three of my classes were in the same practice session - we should be able to get 2 laps per session. Kevan and I got the old Duke and Aprilia through skrootineering with the plan to get one lap in on each.

Up to pit-lane for the start... a little nervous and just keen to get the first lap under our belt. This year the first 16 seeded bike go first, followed by the next seeded group of 17 to 40. With the Ducati and Suzuki I'm in the second seeded group. This is a big help - I get to start with riders that will run similar lap-times. Less traffic which equates to faster laptimes :-)

We start 10 minutes late after they do the Newcomers speed controlled lap for Newcomers that missed Saturday's lap. This leaves it too tight to do lap on the Duke, come in after 1 lap and then head out on the Aprilia for another lap. We decide to get 2 laps in on the Duke. Tank brimmed, engine warmed up, we stare down Glencrutchery road eager the get going. Revvs up to five and a half grand... tap on the shoulder and I ease her away. As the clutch grabs, she does a little six inch hovering wheelie and in seconds we're hammering through the gears toward St. Ninians traffic lights.

The old girl is feeling sweet. Revving up really quickly and pulling like a train from 8000 rpm. I found myself revving her over the imposed 10 000rpm limit  2 or 3 times during the lap, much easier to do with the lightened engine components. Something to watch. Down past the Highlander pub she's pulling just over 10 000rpm... this is on the longer gearing we used for last year's practice to try give the engine an easier time. She's definitely got a few more ponies at the top end - she was a few hundred rpm short of this last year.

I wore my new wedding ring on a chain around my neck. Lying on the tank, it dug into my sternum nicely. Yeouch! I tried to keep my chest off the tank, but every big bump would hammer the sharp edges of the ring into my bone. A bit uncomfortable!

I did away with my usual Pin-lock on the inside of my visor and tried an anti-fog coating. The Pin-lock restricts my vision a bit. Around Glen Helen it seemed as if my visor was steaming up. I tried to direct my breath downwards, but continued to have this fogging. I had to slow down some sections just because I couldn't see properly. During teh laps, my eyes were stinging and started watering. I screwed my eyes up to try clear my vision. So, not sure it my vision was blurred because of a fogging visor or because my eyes were watering.

I managed to open my visor vents going over mountain and that seemed to help. Warren Verwey also had stinging/watering eyes... was it something in the air? Was it the anti-fog coating? Was it fogging up? I'll go back to the Pink-lock for next practice and see... yeah... hopefully we'll see ;-)

On the second lap there are lack of adhesion flags and then rain flags around Appledean. The track is wet all the way through to Ballacraine. I ease off and keep the bike upright. Up through Doran's bend and it's dry again and I get the hammer down.

The handling is a bit off. She turns in okay and is stable-ish. Hitting bumps with teh bike cranked over, she feels like she's wallowing around the center. It's a bit unsettling, but I can ride around it. She also does it when I'm heavy on the brakes. Brakes by the way are fantastic... serious bite and hold teh bike up quickly. All the lightness I've added will help a lot with this as well.

Twice I hit false neutral when going from 6th down to 5th. Heart-in-the-mouth moment when this happens at 140mph... I manage to stomp her down into gear as I'm tipping her in through the turn. Happened at Hilberry and on the mountain. Need to be more positive with my gear-change.

On lap two, there is an incident at the sharp left-hander just after Ginger Hall. Waved yellow flags and a group of 6 riders on Supersport and Supertwins are bunched up. Green flags are waved on the corner after and I fight my way through this pack all the way till Ramsay Hairpin.

I have a good run over the mountain, catching a Supersport machine that sailed past me down Sulby straight. He holds me up a bit but I bring the old girl home safely. Back in Parc Firme and I'm buzzing. I soak up the feeling and the privilege of being able to lap the best race track in the world. There is simply nothing like the TT Mountain Course on closed roads. Fuckin' awesome!

Laptimes: 102 and 105mph. Super happy with that start :-)