Ryan Farquhar maintained his 100% record of finishing in the top ten in the 2010 Isle of Man TT Races when he took a solid ninth place in Thursday afternoon's second Supersport race. The KMR Kawasaki rider battled hard throughout the race and ended the race just 3.71s down on eighth placed Bruce Anstey.

Ryan's day started with a practice lap for Friday's 6-lap Senior where he went out on his own Superstock bike fitted with a tuned engine and the swingarm and quick release mechanism from the MSS Colchester Kawasaki machine, immediately declaring he was a lot happier with the set up of the machine, particularly the handling. With a few more minor tweaks in preparation for the Blue Riband event, Ryan's attentions then turned towards the 4-lap Supersport race, which got underway at 2.45pm.

Apart from blustery winds over the Mountain conditions were ideal and Ryan started strongly, going through Glen Helen, 9 miles into the lap, in fifth place. However, it was nip and tuck all the way with very little between all of the riders and, after a lap of 124.553mph, Ryan found himself back in ninth place, only 3 seconds adrift of fourth placed Keith Amor! He maintained station on the second lap and it was still close although the battle was now fof fifth with the front four riders beginning to edge away.

Pushed back briefly to tenth on the third lap, a strong final lap of 123.763mph saw Ryan get back up to ninth to make it four top ten finishes from four starts and he'll now be hoping to maintain that record in the final race of the week.

Speaking later Ryan commented:

"I had a better race than what I'd had on monday and I simply rode as hard as I could all race. It started off well when I saw 'P5' on my pitboard but on the next I saw 'P9' and although it was incredibly close that's where I hovered for the rest of the race. I could catch up a few of the riders in front of me and when the bike was fully wound up it was as good as anything else out there, it just took us a wee bit extra time to get there!"

"It was a clean race for me with no moments but a crash in front of me unsettled me quite a lot and I was glad to get to the end. It's a bit frustrating as I showed in the Superstock race, where I was bang on the pace, what I can do when it's a lot level a playing field but although it's not where I wanted to be, it's another top ten finish. I'm really looking forward to the Senior now as the changes we've made have made me a lot more competitive and I'm a lot happier with the set up we've now got. I passed Hutchy along the Sulby Straight and hung on to John (McGuinness) for quite a while and whilst I'm not necessarily saying that's what I'll be doing in the race, I'm feeling a lot more confident and am hopeful of a strong showing to end the week on a good note."

The 6-lap Senior race takes place at 12.30pm on Friday.




Words: Phil Wain - Freelance PR