ManxGP: Personal best result for Steve Blackney with team mate Grant Wagstaff coming home 9th in Senior race

Sept 3rd 2010 -Manx GP, IoM, Day 16 – The Final Chapter – EXCLUSIVE Personal Blog by Alan Boyter at Vendetta Racing – The Final race today, the Senior. We all had another early start as the bike had to go through scrutineering again early.  The bike passed as usual (getting good at this now) and we had quite a long wait until our race in the afternoon.  The program was already 1 hr delayed due to fog on the mountain but the weather was good and everyone was confidant it would pass, Roll on the 2:15 start time.

As we started to get organized for the off, you could tell there was a certain tension in the air.  Whether or not this was due to the Seniors being the final race of the Grand Prix or due to the dreadful incident in the Junior race its unknown, but before long everyone was called up to the road to line up.

Its actually quite a spectacle watching 70-90 odd bikes try and line up in numerical order on the main road/start finish straight. When you first get up there its chaos trying to find bike numbers that are close to yours (80) but as soon as the lead bikes are waved of (2 bikes at a time, 10 second intervals) and there is movement, everything just falls into place and you find yourself lined up in numerical order…magic?

Steve got away with no issues so Dara and myself headed down to pit 100 to wait for him to come in at the end of lap 2 for fuel.  It wasn’t long before the lead bikes were coming into pit and as Wag had been moved up the grid due to his great practice times (started number 5!) he was amongst them.

Everything was happening fast and the lead 2 bikes wouldn’t start after their stop!  both of them being pushed frantically down pit lane to bump start with one of them giving up the ghost completely and retiring. Dara and myself were both thinking the same thing, this would work in Wag’s favor as he had come into the pits in over all 6th place…..but after the first minute there was still no Wag leaving the pits.

We were thinking the worse and that his bike wouldn’t start as well but after the 3rd minute, a yellow and blue R6 came barreling past us and headed down Brae Hill!  he’s still in the race but what went wrong?

We got ready for Steve’s pit stop and he came in on que.  Fill the tank, gulp of water and change of helmet due to the vast amount of bugs building up on the visor, a quick check over the bike and he’s away again.  Go for it!

I wandered up to see the boys in Wag’s pit to find out what went wrong. The scrutineer who checks over the bikes as they pit noticed that the chain was very slack and wouldn’t let the bike leave until it was fixed!  Luckily the boys had tools and paddock stands there (as we did) and they frantically tightened the chain while Wag counted seconds, his potential 5th place lost.  What bad luck!

Steve flew past us at the grandstand to start his 4th lap, we looked up to the speed trap flash 146mph!  man that’s fast down a steep village road, well, its fast anywhere!  I had been wearing a stop watch during all his races and as Steve is a man of consistency I could tell within about 5 seconds when he should be passing us on the final lap. What a shock I got when he came past the chequered flag a full 26 seconds earlier than expected! he gave it his all and managed a 106.6mph average! fantastic!

The sense of elation was incredible and the following short bit of time was quite emotional for us all. We had already seen Wag come in and he had managed to claw himself back to 9th place so that on top of Steve knocking in his personal best on the last lap was more than anyone could ask for.  Both boys completing the race, both safe and sound and the final result of 16 hard days work.  A truly magnificent achievement on what’s known as the hardest, longest and most unforgiving road circuit in the world.

Needless to say the night was spent celebrating!  what a fantastic 16 days, 2400 photo’s taken, almost 3kg heavier and lots more grey hair…..  Same again next year- you bet !

Jason’s word of advice: Think ‘Rocky’ at the top of the stairs!

TTFN Alan

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