Mansfield brothers Ben and Tom Birchall suffered more niggling problems during their Wednesday evening practice for the Isle of Man TT when they were forced to retire at Barragarrow during their second lap with an ignition problem.


Despite the hitch which showed up during the first lap of the 37.73-mile course, the Mitchells of Mansfield/Dave Holden Racing sponsored pair put in a strong lap of 21m 24. 42s – 105.751mph; not far away from their best time that was set in Tuesday’s session.

But although they nursed the bike around the course as far as Barragarrow they decided to err on the side of caution and pull in to prevent further damage.

“We got the fuel pump fixed from Tuesday but we had hardly got started tonight before the ignition started to splutter. It wasn’t too bad on the first lap but got worse as the evening wore on,” said Ben.

“The problems are coming to light because of the transition from short circuit racing to riding around flat out on public roads. The road surface is not so smooth and the bumps just upset things a bit. Hopefully we have now beaten the gremlins and can get on with memorising our way around the course.

“We were all up until 3am working on the outfit and the Padgett’s Racing team have been really helpful as they supplied us with some new ignition coils. It’s thanks to my band of helpers that we have the bike up and running again so quickly. Ex-world champion sidecar racers Steve Abbott and Jamie Biggs have worked really hard to get us back on track in time for Thursday’s practice and fingers crossed it should all go well tonight.

“We have blamed our photographer Wally for the problems,” joked Ben–“ he was on hand each time we broke down, to take the photo. We have banned him tonight; he can sit this one out in the paddock!”



Pic credit Mark Wally Walters