After a fortnight of exquisite racing the 2017 Isle of Man Festival of Motorcycling comes to an end.
Congratulations go to Michael Evans on his Senior Manx Grand Prix win and of course doubling it up with his Junior win! The first rider since 2011 to pull off the double win.
Add this double to his lap record of 122.866 mph and he has had one hell of a fortnight.
Second place in the Senior went to Barry Evans with Dean Osbourne taking third.
See below for official race timings and speeds
Congratulations to Michael Rutter who took the Sure Junior Classic TT by just over seven seconds from Lee Johnston on a rescheduled Tuesday Race Day.
Full results below :
TUESDAY 29TH AUGUST 2017 :
Congratulations to Josh Brooke’s (who also took the fastest lap of the race) on his 2017 Senior Classic TT win.
See below for official race timings and speeds.
Results per class from tonight’s (and the final practice session of 2017) (Friday 25th August 2017) Manx GP practice session :
The East Coast Motorcycling Club is delighted to announce that they are running 2017’s Irish road race finale. The circuit previously run as Killalane road races, which was the traditional road race season closer, is now the Carole Nash East Coast Racing Festival. Following a brief sabbatical in 2016, this new Killalane circuit race will take place this year on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th September 2017.
The new East Coast Motorcycling Club was formed in 2016 following the cancellation of the Killalane Road Races last year, with a view to ensuring this fantastic annual motorcycle racing event, held since 1984, was retained as the finale on the Irish road race calendar.
This two day road racing festival kicks off with practice races on Saturday, followed by two of the first official races, which includes two non-championship races for 125’s and a 600cc race in memory of Darren Lindsay.
On Sunday 10th a packed programme of ten races for Junior and Senior Support classes, Classics, Supertwins, 400’s / 250’s, 600’s and Open Superbike Classes.
This makes for a fantastic day’s road racing on this famous 3.6mile southern Irish road race circuit. Past winners over the 32 years of the event reads like a who’s who of Irish motorcycle racing including the legendary Joey Dunlop and his brother Robert and the late great Flying Finn, local boy Martin Finnegan. More recently it’s been Ryan Farquhar, with the Dunlop brothers William and Michael.
The Ulster Grand Prix – the fastest road race in the world – is now underway. Today will see a qualifying session and then a series of five scheduled races concluding with the Charles Hurst Dundrod 150.
Racing will resume on Saturday 12th August 2017 taking us to the feature race – 2017 MCE Ulster Grand Prix.
The hardest question is 'where should I go to watch it?'
Thankfully the organisers have put together a very helpful list of the a the Vantage Points and how to get to them :
The internet has went crazy today reporting on Guy Martin retiring from Road Racing. As a Guy Martin fan, that is of course devastating news, and I honestly believe that most pure fans of road racing will also agree that Guy was / is good for the sport and its profile. However following an ‘exclusive interview’ with MCN it looks like his road racing days are over…
With huge publicity surrounding the partnership of John McGuiness and Guy Martin on the new Honda FireBlade things looked perfect for the 2017 season.
Then it all started to unwind. A poor Tandragee 100 started the season with Guy crashing out on his first lap, followed by an uneventful Cookstown 100 and North West 200 (at the same time as losing team mate John McGuinness to a horrific crash) which led us to the Isle of Man. After the ‘box of neutrals’ incident Honda withdrew from the rest of the event. Guy went onto a second place in the TTZero with Team Mugen, his team mate Bruce Anstey taking the win in that event.
Then the press release came that Honda and Guy would not be participating in the Ulster Grand Prix, a circuit that has brought Guy great success as well as proving almost deadly in 2015.
At this point I think most of us thought the writing on the wall was now here.
Guy Martin’s Road Racing days are over.
Explaining his decision to call it a day in an exclusive interview with MCN’s Matt Wildee, Guy said: “Racing’s been good to me, but I’m bored of it. You spend the early part of the year preparing for the season – testing, racing, talking about it, and then doing it all over again. It’s like Groundhog Day. It’s time to stop.”
Or are they?
Read the full article here : http://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/motorcycling/irish-road-racing-in-danger-of-disappearing-for-good-1-7813238
Respected team owner John Burrows says he fears the unique spectacle of Irish road racing could disappear for good unless swift action is taken to safeguard the future of the sport.
As exclusively revealed by the News Letter in January, the cost of providing insurance cover for National road races in 2017 has risen by as much as £4,500. Clubs are also facing potentially crippling excess payments, which have soared from £1,000 per claim in 2016 to £2,500 this year.
In the past week, two popular races in the Republic of Ireland – the Killalane and Kells events in North Dublin and Co Meath respectively – have been called off as a direct result of spiralling insurance premiums.
Only three races are due to go ahead in the South, including the famous Skerries 100 (July 1), Walderstown (July 9) and the Faugheen 50 meeting on July 23.
Read more at: http://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/motorcycling/irish-road-racing-in-danger-of-disappearing-for-good-1-7813238
It was only yesterday that I posted about this problem, and I mentioned the need for us all to support our local clubs, and buy programs when we go to the events. We really need to make sure we safeguard the future of this unique sport for many more generations to come!
