Thursday evening was the penultimate evening of practice for the Isle of Man TT races where Steve Plater kicks off his schedule of races with the six-lap Superbike TT which is set to start at noon on Saturday.


Thursday evening saw Plater again put in some fast laps on the HM Plant Honda Superbike to better his personal best time set the previous day with a new time of 128.952mph, also registering a scorching 191.7mph through the speed trap at Sulby – and that was from a standing start!

Plater just completed one lap on the Superbike before heading out to give the HM Plant Honda 600cc Supersport machine a run where he completed two laps of the 37.73-mile mountain course, his best lap being the second where he registered a speed of 123.397mph.

His final outing was on the Padgett’s Honda Fireblade in the Superstock class where he clocked up a fastest lap time of 123.338s on the first of the two laps.

He completed five laps of the TT course in total coming into the pits at the end of the session for a welcome rest!

“We had a good evening tonight,” said the ever-smiling Lincolnshire rider. “I managed to get out on all three bikes at some stage during the practice session and everything was A-OK.

“Apart from the racing it’s been a constant round of PR appearances and photo calls. It has been a hectic week and it looks set to continue into Friday as we have more PR with the team then.”

Speaking on Friday afternoon Plater said: “The weather forecast isn’t too great for this evening, it’s been spitting with rain and a bit cooler and overcast today but at the moment it’s dry so lets hope we can get a few more laps in tonight.

“The forecast for Saturday is a bit dire, it says heavy and continuous rain – if that’s the case then we won’t be racing as the visibility won’t be good over the mountain. Let’s hope they have got it wrong as we need a nice clear day to provide us with some excellent racing.”

Steve will be out again tonight in the final session – weather permitting – and will take the Padgett’s Superstock out and then the HM Plant Honda Supersport around the course to make any final adjustments in preparation for Monday when he contests the Superstock TT and then the Supersport Junior TT in which he took his maiden win last year.


Pic credit Mark Wally Walters