Dan Stewart and the SMT Racing team had a mixed day of racing at the Isle of Man TT Races on Monday with the Cumbrian rider having a superb ride in the morning's Supersport 600cc race but retiring from the Superstock race later in the day. Ninth place and a new personal best lap on the 600cc Honda was a superb result but handling problems meant he had little option other than to retire from the big capacity race.
 
With perfect conditions all around the Mountain Course, Dan was able to get underway exactly on time in the morning's Supersport 600cc race and with a superb opening lap of 122.754mph, he slotted into a strong tenth place. It would prove to be quite a lonely ride for Dan as the only rider he saw during the race was eventual third place rider William Dunlop, who started ten seconds behind him, but an even better second lap, a new personal best of 122.788mph maintained his tenth place position. With Gary Johnson retiring on the final lap, Dan was moved up the order to ninth and here was where he finished for one of his finest Supersport TT rides.
 
At 2pm, the 4-lap Superstock race got underway but as early as Glen Helen on the opening lap, it was clear all was not well as Dan found himself back in 18th place. Sure enough, he failed to appear in the top 12 at any of the timing points and with an opening lap of 120.166mph, he was back in 32nd place and pulled in the pits to retire. With a lack of practice time on the bike, the set-up wasn't quite right for Dan to post his usual fast laps and run inside the top ten so he made the wise decision to pull in.
 
Speaking afterwards, Dan said; "I could have done 120-122mph laps all day on the Stocker but I'm used to going a lot quicker than that so I didn't want to cruise round for 20th place or something and it would have too dangerous to push any harder. With the wet weather in practice, we had to concentrate on the Superbike when we got some dry track time and we simply ran out of time to get the big Kawasaki dialled in. The morning's race was the opposite though as the little Honda was brilliant and it was probably one of my best ever Supersport rides. I'm a lot bigger than some of the other riders so the 600cc class shouldn't really suit me but I enjoy riding the bike and I lapped comfortably quicker than ever before so I was really happy with the result. Apart from William, I never saw anyone so I just did my own thing and apart from Gary, no-one dropped out so I had to work for the position all the way."
 
Team owner Robin Croft added; "Dan did all we thought he'd do in the 600cc race and it was a well deserved position so we were all very happy with it. A top ten finish at the TT is never to be sniffed at and Dan rode well and it all pretty much went like clockwork. There was always a bit of trepidation going into the Superstock race due to the lack of track time and the Kawasaki was a bit of an unknown quantity for all of us. The lack of set-up time hurt us and Dan was being pushed wide into turns he didn't want to be pushed wide in so discretion over valour took over. It was a bit of a mixed day but we're all looking forward to Wednesday which should be a good day for us with Dan going in the second Supersport race and Tim and Dan back out in the sidecar race so let's hope the good weather remains."
 
Picture by Mark Walters