Archibald dedicates first win to Jefferies

Adrian Archibald has won his first TT race at the Isle of Man, dedicating the win to his former team-mate David Jefferies who died in Thursday’s practice session.

The TAS Suzuki rider initially had trouble getting back on the bike for Friday night’s practice session with thoughts of Jefferies accident still strong in his mind. But he overcame his doubts and went on to win the Formula One race by a massive 1:15 making an average lap speed of 123.18mph.

Ian Lougher kept up a consistent pace throughout the race holding third for most of the six laps on his ex-World Superbike Honda SP-2. But he was lifted to second when John McGuinness was held up in the pits before the last lap.

McGuinness was the only rider lapping at a similar pace to Archibald but he was having to work his Monstermob Ducati very hard leaving a severely shredded tyre at the first pit stop on lap two then pulling in again at the end of both lap four and five. His third stop became necessary when the 998 began to experience gearbox problems. But difficulties restarting the British Superbike spec Ducati, which does not have an onboard starter motor, saw him finish third behind Lougher.

Fresh from his win at the North West 200 races Ryan Farquhar held on to fourth place for the first half of the race but his pace began to slip and he dropped to sixth place behind Richard Britton and Jason Griffiths. He eventually finished the race in fifth behind Griffiths after Britton dropped out on the last lap.

The new electronic transponder timing system which so amazingly invented a rider in the first practice session, pronouncing that David Jefferies 127mph lap record had been broken had to be turned off on lap five after more bugs were discovered in the system. The race organisers had to resort to the backup manual timing system but no further problems arose.

To check to the latest update to the diary of our TT privateer, Chris McGovern, follow the link on the right, or to comment on this story click to go to our TT discussion board.