This was our main event of the year and one we had been looking forward to for many months. After the sudden end to Dan’s 2009 TT he wanted to prove he could run with the best.
After the cancellation of the Saturday night first practice session due to wet conditions the practices went off on time. Dan steadily improved his times as he got used to riding the R6 on the roads, reacquainted himself with the K7 and tried out the West London Suzuki K9 Superstock. All went well and Dan achieved fastest laps of 125.217 (Superbike), 122.119 (Superstock) and121.813 (Supersport). These times put Dan firmly in the top 20 with some speed in hand for the races.
The first race was the Saturday Superbike race, delayed a few hours due to mist. Dan had a great first lap at 125.834 to place him in 14th place. He gradually moved up the field to finish in 12th place, immediately behind Ryan Farquhar and Bruce Ansty.
The first Supersport race was held on Monday morning with Dan starting at number 15. By Glen Helen he was in third place. He held this until lap three when he was caught by Michael Dunlop. Many yellow flags were out on the last lap.
Unlike most of the front runners Dan actually slowed for the flags and this, along with being held up by Ryan Farquhar meant that he was overtaken on time by Keith Amor.
There is an enquiry into how Amor achieved a lap speed of almost 127 mph with the number of yellow flags being shown! A fifth place, beating John McGuiness, Conor Cummins, Ryan Farquhar and Cameron Donald did not go unnoticed by the “big” teams.
The Superstock race was on the Monday afternoon. Dan was still getting to grips with the K9 and his lack of track time on the bike meant the set up was not quite right. Despite this he finished in 15th place with a fastest lap of 124.645.
Wednesday’s second Supersport race saw Dan take 10th place. This was another great result especially as all of the main runners finished.
Dan and the crew did remarkably well. Slick supplied engines that finished all of the races and we were awarded with silver replicas in all five races and reached 9th place in the overall points championship.
