Finally sorted through my TT photos and I was going to do a small write up but it didn't turn out to be that small so I thought I'd just stick to a few photos!
John McGuiness gets us underway
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John gets us underway by
Graham, on Flickr
This year was contested between these two men
Ian Hutchinson
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IMG_8518 by
Graham, on Flickr
and Michael Dunlop
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IMG_8534 by
Graham, on Flickr
There wasn't much to separate them all. Michael set a new lap record and won, Ian came second, John third.
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IMG_8049 by
Graham, on Flickr
Ian on his Team Traction Control supersport. It's owned by Keith Flint of Prodigy fame don't you know. Oh, and we met Keith in Ramsay! Went to drag racing day they have during the TT and bumped in to Keith. Also strange was that as we were parking up on our bikes, right next to me a bike pulled up and my mate Rich walked over to him and said "Excuse me, are you from Bracknell?" and he was! Go all the way to the Isle of Man and end up parking next to someone from down the road.
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IMG_9143 by
Graham, on Flickr
I've never been
that much into sidecars but Saturdays race celebrations were one of the best things I've seen at a sporting event. The two favourites ended up not finishing and an outfit ridden by Holden and Winkle won it. I won't say out of the blue because they are a good pair but the leading two team do dominate the sidecars so for these guys to win was a turn up to say the least. Not only that but the second and third place were taken by brothers who were overjoyed. The winners enclosure was very much a family affair but sadly I couldn't get any decent shots of it - we were at the side and it was official photographers and film crew only to face them head on. It really was a joy to watch and quite emotional, I may have even had to hold a tear back myself!
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IMG_8207 by
Graham, on Flickr
There's also an electric bike race. They only do one lap as they run out of power. It's quite strange watching them whizz by with only a whoosh noise as they cut through the air.
This is Bruce Anstey on his Mugen bike.
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IMG_9437 by
Graham, on Flickr
He was second favouite to win after John McGuiness but John had an incident where he went over a slight bump and the emergency stop button cut his bike out. He didn't realise what had happened until someone shouted out something and then away he was again. Cost him about 5 minutes and that was him out of it. It's a bit of a non event sadly, only 5 bikes took part. There were more listed but they seem to be suffering from a lot of mechanical/electrical problems at the moment. I'm not really sure the TT is the place to showcase them.
Some lovely ladies about as you can imagine
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IMG_8052 by
Graham, on Flickr
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IMG_8005 by
Graham, on Flickr
This one is Ivan Linton winning the Lightweights. They're 650cc bikes, mostly based on the Kawasaki ER6's with a few Suzuki's. One of the nice thing about bike racing is that you can generally wander around the paddocks and quite a few of the riders work on their bikes with the mechanics. We were chatting to Ivan for a few minutes a couple of days before this race and he was hoping for a good performance in it. He's a nice guy so I'm glad he won.
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IMG_9523 by
Graham, on Flickr
Right, considering I'm not doing a write up I've gone on for long enough and I've not covered most of what the event is about. It's amazing, if you get the chance you should go. I'd go next year I could but the Mrs wasn't doesn't look too happy with that thought! There's loads more photos on m Flickr site if you want to see more.
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