John McGuinness enjoyed an excellent day of racing at the Isle of Man TT Races on Wednesday with the Morecambe man taking second in the TT Zero race and third in the second Supersport race. The two podiums moved him on to a total of 40, which equals the record number achieved by Joey Dunlop during his illustrious TT career.
The first race of the day for John was the one-lap TT Zero race, for electric machines, and after a 109mph+ lap in practice, hopes were high of taking another race win. At Glen Helen on the opening lap, John's lead over arch-rival Michael Rutter was nine seconds but by Ramsey this had been reduced to five and it was clear it was going to come down to a Grandstand finish. Rutter crossed the line first with a new lap record of 109.675mph and although John broke the lap record also, he was agonisingly 1.67s adrift of Rutter and so had to settle for second place.
Putting his disappointment to one side, John was back in action less than an hour later on the 600cc HM Plant Padgetts Honda for the second 4-lap Supersport race and a strong opening lap of 124.768mph put John into fourth place, 8.3s behind third placed rider William Dunlop. For the rest of the race though, John continued to eat into Dunlop's advantage and heading into the final lap, he'd edged half a second ahead. Lapping quicker than ever before on a Supersport machine, John's final lap of 127.210mph secured him the final podium position by just 0.972s after 150 miles of high-speed racing! It gave him his fourth podium of the week and 40th in total.
Speaking later, a happy John said; "I was really disappointed after the Zero race as I rode my heart out and to lose by such a small margin was tough to take. Michael must have had a different strategy as I could see him on the Cronk y Voddy and again going up the Mountain but then he just disappeared. No-one could have ridden harder around the corners as what I did so if we'd have been on the same bikes I think it would have been a different story. It's fair to say I was gutted. The Mugen team did an awesome job and it was a tough one to take."
"I had to pick my lip up though for the Supersport race and, in what's becoming a recurring theme this week, I have never ridden harder! I knew the gap between William and myself was next to nothing so I pushed and pushed as I was desperate for that final podium spot. I had a big slide at Cronk ny Mona and my feet were off the pegs so I was pushing the bike hard but the pace was incredible right from the off. It was wheel to wheel stuff again and another great race to be part of whilst the HM Plant Padgetts boys did a great job once more. In all the year's I've been riding for them, the bikes have completed every lap and although I might not have won one yet, I'm having a great week. To equal Joey's record number of podiums is something special too and I'm very proud of that feat."
John's final race is Friday's 6-lap Senior race where he'll be back out on the Honda TT Legends Superbike.
Picture by Pacemaker Press International
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