I didn't see too much of the racing today, but plenty of the sounds and smells (aaah, two strokes!).

However, there's two particular rides that I feel deserve a mention.

Phil McGurk stopped to make adjustments to his bike in the post classic junior and still rode to second place! Fantastic!

And Doug Snow in the Junior classic was just pipped to 3rd place by 1.76 seconds after another terrific ride!

What a great day, fingers crossed for more great weather and racing later on this week,

Jo

Would second that, especially as regards Doug Snow. His last lap of 22.39.39 was so close to a 100mph lap (99.918) which I don't think has ever been managed on a Ducati single at the Manx. Stand to be corrected on that though. To finish within 2 seconds of that MV is a great effort. Would be interesting if Doug could get himself a ride in the Senior Classic on a 500 Duke in the future, if he's interested.

Tom Llewelyn gets my vote. Third in Newcomers B, a lap at over 106mph on a seven year old 650 twin and he only started racing in March last year!

Didn't realise that about Doug's last lap - I'm even more impressed now.

And, Sticky, agree about Tom too! Nice young lad too, keeps giving me baking tips and commenting on the cakes I make each day for the technical officials!

I'm going to go for Meredydd Owen in Thursday's race. Almost did 100mph lap and was running in 3rd for most of the race before retiring on the final lap.

And today's vote goes to Tom and Doug Snow for 2nd in 250 (Tom) and 1st 125 (Doug). Great day for the family!

I'm relying on others to vote for "man of the match" / Rider of the race for the Senior as I fell asleep during the race!

Man of the match!?! Its got to be Michael Dunlop. On a 30 year old bike that he had never even sat on before setting off down Bray Hill he lapped at 119.59 making him second fastest OVERALL in practice and knocking 2 minutes off the existing post classic lap record.
In the race, even after coming across Ollies crash, sitting up, slowing and acknowledging the yellow flags at Creg (perhaps some other riders should take note!) and stating that he slowed on the last lap to ensure that other riders would receive replicas he still set a time that would have seen him finish fourth in the Senior race.
He also generated an immense amount of publicity for the MGP, and happily posed for photos and autographs including one for my daughter. Great guy and definately Man of the Match in my book.

Thanks for the vote guys.
It was really dissapointing to miss the 100mph lap by that little, but never mind there's always next year!
Manx Badger it would be really nice to have a 450 Ducati as well but there are quite a list of reasons why it would be unlikley. There's 14 years of development gone into making that 350 that good. Although we could cut a lot of that time out we haven't got the funds to build one. It is also quite hard to get much more out of the 450's as the head becomes the limiting factor, were already at the limit of the casting on the 350. I do almost all of the work on the bikes we take and I would striggle to keep 3 running. Last and not least I've never had any luck with 500's at the Manx or elsewhere, that's the main reason I got the 125 and dropped the 500's a few years ago.
Having said all that if I manage to pick up some sponsorship over the winter you never know.