Gary Johnson took his East Coast Construction Honda CBR600RR to a surprise win in the second Supersport race at this year’s Isle of Man race – his first win at the TT – beating 16-time TT victor John McGuinness on a Padgett’s Honda and Guy Martin on a TAS Relentless Suzuki.
That makes a 100 per cent podium record so far for Martin, but a victory continues to elude the chatty (if unintelligible to North American ears) Lancashireman.
Race favourite Michael Dunlop retired his R6 on the first lap with a mechanical problem; he eventually got the bike going but just toured around to the pits.
Johnson was really on his day, taking a huge lead at the outset and maintaining a good gap for the entire four laps. Behind him, McGuinness, Martin, Cameron Donald, Bruce Anstey and Dan Kneen battled, while Scot Keith Amor and Aussie Cameron Donald later caught up the group on time.
A number of riders were slowed, including Martin, when red flags were shown at two spots on the course, the Ramsey hairpin and Union Mills (nice pub to watch the race from, actually…). Both turned out to be have been errors, and riders were later credited with time lost, leading to considerable confusion in getting the results posted.
McGuinness’ second place means that with just the Senior Race left to run, he has 76 points at the top of this year’s TT Championship (most points for the week in all races), 17 clear of Keith Amor.
In other results for the second-last day of racing at the 2011 TT, John Holden and Andrew Winkel took the sidecar race in their LCR, after finishing second in the initial go-around earlier in the week.
In the (as usual) lightly-attended SES TT Zero race for electric bikes, nine entries turned up and five finished. The Segway MotoCzysz team took the top two spots, winner Michael Rutter just missing out on the £10,000 prize fund allocated by the Isle of Man Government for the first electric bike team to achieve a 100 mph average speed for the 37¾ mile circuit, with a 99.64 mph lap.
“99.6mph – that’s the story of my life. I tried to conserve battery life and stay smooth. It’s a totally different way of riding, but I really enjoyed it,” said Rutter.
Apparently Michael Rutter has been castrated. There is no other explanation for his comment regarding racing an electric bike.