NEW LAP RECORD!
Harrison makes history and Hickman wins
‘You’ve got to be on a level playing field and I feel I’ve got that now’
It’s the oldest adage in racing: ‘In order to finish first, first you have to finish’. Dean Harrison perfectly demonstrated this by being far and away the fastest rider in Saturday’s Superbike TT but failed to finish when the clutch expired on his Silicone Kawasaki ZX-10RR.
“I knew Michael was setting off ten seconds behind me so I had to go for it because I didn’t want him to catch me,” Harrison explained. “I got my head down, banged in one fast lap and then another. Everything was going fine. The bike was handling good and the pit stop went well. But on lap three the clutch started slipping and it burnt itself out on lap four.” Team boss Paul Iddon explained the clutch problem arose after a different spec engine was put into the Kawasaki for the race. Anyone who has seen the television footage of Harrison at the bottom of Bray Hill on his opening lap will know just how hard he was trying, but the 29-year-old says he can go even faster. “Michael had no answer to my first lap but my idea was that if I could put together my best sector times from the first two laps then the ideal would be a 135.3,” he said. The Bradford rider will have that chance again in Friday’s Senior race. “With my ‘race face’ on I can always find another mile per hour,” he smiled.
“I did that on Saturday and I was pretty steady through Ginger Hall to Ramsey on the first lap so there is more time to be had there. I’m not saying it’s massive but all those places could be worth a couple of seconds so there is definitely more to come.”
From a standing start Harrison broke the 134mph barrier for the first time in TT history, setting a new record of 134.432mph on his opening lap. On lap two he hit 134mph again, posting 134.180mph as he slowed for his pitstop.
So where has he found all that extra speed?
“It comes down to a number of factors but the most important one is moving up to a superbike as last year he was riding a Superstock spec bike,” Silicone Kawasaki team boss and ex-racer, Paul Iddon says. Harrison is now enjoying the continuity of being in his third year under Iddon’s tutelage and with just one rider in the team, he benefits from the full attention of the squad. Together they have cherry-picked the best kit.
“We use Maxton suspension on the rear and Öhlins on the front because we are not tied to any manufacturer,” says Iddon. “Last year we just ran the kit electronics but as soon as we got to BSB it gave us the opportunity to run Motec.” Both Iddon and Harrison also feel that racing in the ultra-competitive BSB series has been another important factor in gaining extra TT speed. Harrison said: “You have to do stuff like BSB racing now to be up to speed on the roads. Peter Hickman has proved that. So if you can’t beat them join them. “Everything is better and it’s top quality stuff. I have always said that if I was going to beat Michael, Peter etc then I need the same tackle as they have because the lads are so good you can’t beat them on lesser equipment. You have got to be on a level playing field and I feel that I have got that now.”