Southern 100 Report

More day job related fun for me as I was out at the Isle of Man for the third time in five months, this time for the Southern 100 road races. That's Conor Cummins in the foreground.

I thought I'd take some phone snaps. GI

I'd never been to this race meeting, so for Wednesday evening's race I walked up to a point that looked good. It was amazing.

The first race came through and the riders were close enough to touch. All the guys stood on the bank held their breaths then all blurted 'Feck' when the 20-odd bikes had streamed past. If they'd been sat with their legs over the bank thy'd have got their shoes ripped off.

Like rats, you're never more than 20 yards from a Sideburn fan. This is Harley from Douglas in his beloved Eddie shirt.
Wednesday night's Superbike race, lap 1. Ryan Farquhar leads, Michael Dunlop second, Guy Martin third at this point, Cameron Donald fourth, I think. Guy won this one. Mass start road races rule. Especially on a beautiful evening like this.The organising club's HQ. Part tea hut, part toilet block, part office. All you need, right there. Look at the colour of that sky.
Kawasaki ER-6s make awesome race bikes. There's the Werner and Johnny Lewis bikes in the GNC and this is Ryan Farquhar's dominant mini-twin 650.

Wednesday night. The camera has been drinking.

Thursday morning. No special passes required. That's me on a wall, collar popped in a vain attempt not to get sunburnt. That's the track behind me.
See, I told you.

Guy's garland on the Relentless Suzuki van. The team don't bring the big 18-wheeler to these races.

Thursday afternoon. Is there a better way to spend it?

This is looking back to Joeys' gate. That's Ryan Farquhar coming through.

The fella in the blue T-shirt is Paul Phillips, (one of) the brains behind the TT. He's a massive road racing fan and the saviour of the TT (in my mind, he'd never say that). This is him doing some research from the hedges.

A big field of sidecars including TT winners Klaffenbock and Sayle. The first couple of laps were doo-lally. Even Michael Dunlop thinks these fellas are crazy.

UPDATE. See that weed in the gutter. William Dunlop ran over that trying to overtake someone on his 250. Close!