Despite persistent rain and low cloud covering the Island during Tuesday, the evening’s practice went session ahead but such were the conditions only six solo riders ventured out on to the circuit. The rain that had been falling during the day finally stopped and the cloud lifted sufficiently on the Mountain for the practice to commence at 7pm but none of the top 30 riders left the confines of their awnings or motorhomes so it was left to veteran campaigners Alan ‘Bud’ Jackson and David Madsen-Mygdal to set off down Glencrutchery Road first.

They were followed by Antonio Maeso, James Edmeades, who was having his first lap of the TT08 festival having competed in the KTM Super Duke Series at Donington Park on Bank Holiday Monday, John Barton and Alessio Corradi. For the latterly named, it was certainly a baptism of fire as the Italian newcomer got his first taste of the Mountain Circuit on a closed road.

The severity of the conditions could be seen in the lap times and it was Madsen-Mygdal who had the honour of topping the timesheets at 87.25mph, some 27mph down on his best lap the previous evening! He was followed by Jackson (84.30), Edmeades (82.49), Corradi (79.97), Barton (79.92) and Maeso (76.16) with all six riders limited to just one lap.

Having had their session truncated by James McBride’s unfortunate accident the evening before, the F2 sidecars were given a full, hour long session and, unlike their solo counterparts, a vastly higher proportion of crews took to the line with almost 40 outfits taking part in the session.

Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance utilized the session to its fullest, getting in a full quota of 3 laps thus increasing their knowledge further and the reigning World Champions ended up second on the night with a speed of 94.00mph. Steve Coombes and Gary Partridge also put in 3 laps of the course and they were fastest at 95.11mph.

Roy Hanks and Dave Wells were first to complete a lap but a combination of the weather and a puncture kept their speed down to 88.74mph. They eventually went back out to slot into fifth place overall on 93.25mph, just behind Phil Dongworth/Stu Castles (93.87) and Keith Walters/Alun Thomas (93.59).

Nick Crowe and Steve Norbury had very sedate outings, lapping at 82.89mph and 73.89mph respectively, whilst, like Monday evening, a number of the crews encountered problems during the course of the session with Peter Farrelly/Jason Miller, Mike Roscher/Michael Hildebrand and Wal Saunders/Eddy Kiff all being reported as having stopped out on the course.


Sidecar Times