Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Honda Brltaln's Nick Jefferies was second In the F-l race and third behind his teammates McCallen and Dunlop in the Senior IT. minute, and the y d id not have enough spares, including wheels, which seemed to condemn the youngster to six whole laps on intermediate tires - on what was now a completely dry track. This misfortune, however, did lead to a little further glory as Pull en was now up to second place, cou rtesy of a much shorter pit stop than other riders because no rear wheel change was made. At the l o-mile time checkpoint at Glen Hele n on lap three, McCallen enjoyed a 23-second lead over Pullan. who in turn now led Jefferies by 45. Rutter was enjoying a stea dy -ride on the Muculloch 955 Ducati and was now fourth. McCallen contin ue d to edge away over the next two laps, and Pullen, intermediate tire or not, held onto his comfortable second place. At the second round of pi t stops (end of lap four), McCallen still had a huge lead of 42 seconds. However, he had lost nine seconds to Pulle n over the mountain. Was he in trouble? I, "H alfway round that fou rth lap the bike kept cu tti ng o u t," ex p lai ned McCallen. "I think it was fuel starvation." Indeed , McCallen's RC45 was suffering fue l-starvation probl ems. However, his nearest challenger, Pullen. was about . to experience more pit drama of his own. Between th e se co nd -la p stop and the most rece n t, his team had begged and borrowed a spare wheel. But this move which cou ld have led to a previously unthinkable result went awry; the center sprocket of the new wheel unfathomably fell o u t. Th e team lost vital minutes before returning to the race and thus fell from the reckoning , eve n tually retiring with elec t ric al probl ems. Still, it w as un doubtedly the performance of the d ay. And so it was left to McCallen to win his fifth TT at a jog, eventually leading the cons istent Jefferies by 50 seconds at race's end. "It was really d ifficult those last two laps," McCallen said. "I didn 't think the bike was going to last. There was no fuel getting through. I got a tow from Rutter an d Nick (Iefferies) on that last lap which really he lped, or else I wouldn' t have ma de it." The difficulty of it all was evident on McCallen's blistered hands, caused by his efforts to keep the power wide open on the final two laps . A brave ride in the circums tances. Forty-four-year-old Jefferies' ride into second place shouldn't be underestimat@. The tall Englishman had still not fully re cove red from a 150-mph fall at th e North West 200 just two weeks before the TT. He was understandably ph ysically drained at the finish. 'I "Obviously I am happy to finish on th e podium, bu t that took a lot ou t of me," said Jefferies. "To be honest, I didn't push it that hard, yet it was still tough for me out there." Rutter finished a very creditab le third on th e Du cati, not really believing his luck in finishing third at his place where his father Tony was an eight-time winner during the '70s and '80s. "I never thought I could finish th ird here," Rutter sai d, somewh at bemu sed. " I w as a littl e unnerved a t the start because of the weather, but that had settled down on the second lap and I felt more at ease. The Ducati ran very smoothly all day, but I guess I was lucky with the retirements." Probably a little too modest, but Rutter had a point. A lot of riders went ou t of this race, or never really recovered from early-race dramatics. lain Du ffus had a good go, though. After the second-lap histri onics, the Scot got his RC45 up to fourth at race' s end, jus t eight seconds down on Rutter. His disappointment over the ill-fated pit stop was still apparent at the finish and he refused to talk with the med ia, de spite setti ng the fastest lap of the race, 120.84 mph, on his last tour . Du nlo p recovered from his pit -lane dramas to finish in an unassuming seventh place. Moodie ha d been running as high as sixth on the Reve Kawasaki, but punctured a rear tire on lap four and lost a good deal of time, even tually finishing 15th. Former WERA racer Chris Haldane from New Zealand had qualified well on his private Ducati but retired at the end of lap one with handling difficulties. 250cc A hi st oric race. Joey Du nlop es ta blished his 20th TT vi ctory w ith what turn ed out to be a com fortabl e w in ab oard the Honda Britain RS250. The Ulsterman didn' t have it all hi s w ay, . how ever, at least in the early stages of the race. Englishman Gavin Lee' s private RS250 was leading halfway around the first lap until his right footpeg broke away from the motorcycle. A disappointed Lee made it back to the start / finish line but retired in pit lane. Lee had been quick in practice and this had been no fluke performance. With Lee's d em ise , McCallen led (again) at the end of the opening four- lap race by just two-tenths of a second from Dunlop , with Moo die five seconds furtherback. McCallen edged away throughout the second lap, but Dunl op was still within striking distance just 2.1 seconds back as the teams pitted at the end of the second lap . Moodie remained in touch, though not having closed any on Dunlop. It was in the pit that things got hectic for McCallen - he was balked by another 125cc race the very next d ay. The start was d ela yed b y six and a h alf hours because of thick. misty fog on the mountain section of the track. Even by the time the race started, the fog had hardly abated and this was to ultimately play in to Dunl op's experienced hands. Just as in the early stages of the previous day's 250cc race, it was Gav in Lee who was to prove the main threat to the Irishman. The Dunlop lead by 2.5 seconds at the end of the open ing lap , but machine as he tried to exit and seemed to dr op the bike before ·reeovering. Nev ertheless, he lost a lot of tim e and it was now Dunlop who led, by 14 seconds, at the lO-mile checkpoint on lap three. By th e 20-mil e checkpoin t, it was Moodie in second place, some 18 seconds down on Dunlop. McCallen was third, all of 12 second s down on Moo di e. And McCallen was in trouble, his Honda's exhaust had somehow developed a hole and the RS was losing power slowly but surely. SoDunlop must have this won, everyone thought. But no, more drama seemed possible. By the end of the third lap, Dunlop led Moodi e by 11 seconds - the gap having been reduced by seven seconds over the mountain. At the l o-mile checkpoint on the last lap, Dunl op's lead was down to eight seconds. But w hen he received signals that his lead was diminishing, Du nlo p simply u pped the pace and at Ramsey (20 miles) he led by 11 seconds again. In a final twist, Dunlo p later admitted that he was migh ty worried on the last lap about the Honda's fuel economy . His pit stop had been a little rushed. Did the crew put enough fuel in? Dunlop wise ly rolled it off a little over the mountain for the final time to cross the line with just six seconds over Moodie. After the race, Dunl op was his usual indifferent self. Yes he was pleased to win a 20th TT, blah, blah, blah. But it may as w ell have been just a club race w in . Throughout his career he has remained a man who prefers to keep his emotions to himself. It was left to his manager Davy Wood to really express how the team and his fans feel about him. "He's a genius," exclaimed Wood over the p.a. system, "a genius!" by Glen Helen on the second tour, Lee wa s amazingly ah ead by two seconds. . Dunlop ag ain responded o n th e run through Ramsey, to lead by barely twotenths at the hairpin checkpoint. It was anyone 's race. Over the mountain. however, it was the ma estro Dunlop who took his chances in the mist and won by three seconds. Again Dunlop was fairly unemotional post race. "I rode hard over the mountain . (on the) secon d lap , but I was wary of pushing- too much. Th e m ist was qu ite bad," he explained. Lee in tum admitted that the fog had unn erved him somewhat and he had eased off a little on that final lap. 125cc Not content with 20 w in s, Dunlop scored hi s 21st vict or y in th e two-lap SINGLES Scot Jim Moodie won as he pleased aboard his 684 Yamaha in a somew hat lackluster and poo rly su ppo rted Singles race. Moodie hadn't even completed a lap in p ractice, yet was still the hot favori te for the race. His main threa t was always going to be from the Chrysalis BMW of Englishma n Dave Morris, bu t Moo d ie had caught him after only 10 miles on the opening lap (thus 10 seco nds ahea d on corrected time) and sat behind him for the remainder of the two-lap race to win withou t breaking a sweat. Moodie even had the audacity to comp lain afterward that hi s m otorcycle had been misfirin g from the start. 600cc With fierce r ival s Duffus and McCallen currently running first and second in the British championship and Duffus confident of a third consecutive 600cc TT win, much was expected from this race. Yet it was to be a major disappointm~. As per the 12Secand Singles races, this . event started some six hours late, and was reduced from four laps to three. McCallen had the hammer down from -.D C'l W § ....... 23

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