Former TT star and five-time Manx Grand Prix winner Bob Jackson is the latest rider to commit to running a team at the 2013 Classic TT with the announcement that he will have a three-rider attack on this year’s races.

The Cumbrian motorcycle dealer’s career on the Mountain Course begun at the Manx Grand Prix in 1975 before going on to take four podiums between 1978 and 1980 and he scored immediate success at the TT in 1981 when he placed second behind Steve Tonkin in the Junior race.

His TT record was exemplary throughout the 1980s and 1990s with no less than seven podiums taken, his last coming when he missed out on victory to the works Honda RC45 of Ian Simpson in the 1998 Senior by an agonising 3.4s.

Spearheading the team is the current outright lap holder for the Manx Grand Prix, Alan Jackson jnr (no relation). The Preston rider lapped at 122.208mph in the titanic Senior race in 2005 and has continued to compete at the Manx since, more recently on a Moriwaki Moto 2 GP bike. He will ride for his namesake on board a 750cc RC30 Honda in the Formula One Classic TT Superbike race.


As well as the entry in the Post Classic Superbike race, Jackson will also run Dan Sayle and Maria Costello in the 250cc Classic TT. Sayle, 7 times a winner at the TT as a sidecar passenger, has also taken two victories on modern machinery at the Manx GP, impressively winning the 2008 and 2009 Lightweight 250cc events but he will have his first outing in the Classic races this year, riding one of Jackson’s immaculately prepared T20 Suzuki’s.

Meanwhile, Costello, a regular competitor at both the TT and Manx GP will be similarly mounted. No stranger, to the 250cc Classic races, she took a good third in the 2011 Manx Grand Prix race and will join Sayle as a pre-race favourite.

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