By Phil Wain
June 5 2005

Tourist Trophy: John McGuinness got his Isle of Man TT campaign off to the perfect start today, with a start-to-finish victory in the opening six-lap TT Superbike race. Postponed from Saturday, the race got underway at the scheduled start of 2:00pm with near perfect track conditions all the way round the 37 3/4 mile course, and John put in a brilliant performance to firmly emphasise his class around the Mountain Course.

By the first checkpoint at Glen Helen, nine miles into the race, he was already two seconds up on his nearest rival and, by the end of the opening lap, his advantage was up to 8.1 seconds after a lap speed of 126.36mph. The trend was set for the remainder of the race, and John continued to stretch his advantage between each one of the commentary points, never being threatened at the head of the field. His second lap was faster still, at 126.87mph, with his lead up to a dominant 20 seconds as he came into re-fuel for the first time.

It was a smooth pit stop, and John left the pits with his advantage maintained over Honda rider Richard Britton, although he in turn was coming under pressure from third placed rider Adrian Archibald. Indeed, Archibald overhauled Britton on the third lap, setting an almost identical lap time to that of John. The Morecambe rider was well and truly into his rhythm now, and had overtaken Britton on the road, rapidly closing in on Ian Lougher.

John and Archibald were again almost inseparable on the stopwatch on the fourth lap, John’s time of 17m 59.1s just three-tenths of a second quicker than his rival. A fourth lap of 125.83mph meant John was over 28 seconds clear with two thirds of the race distance gone, although there were still another 75 miles of racing to negotiate.

Having overtaken both Ian Lougher and Martin Finnegan on the road, John was now lying second on the road, with only Archibald in front of him, but his overall lead continued to stretch. Indeed, he made up another six seconds at the pit stop and, with just one lap to go, his lead was a commanding 34.6 seconds.

It was a smooth run to the flag for the AIM Racing rider, and he ran home a clear winner to take his seventh TT win. His final winning margin over Archibald was a commanding 36.3 seconds, winning the race at a record average speed of 125.40mph - although his outright lap record of 127.68mph, set in 2004, remained intact.

After a gruelling six laps, a delighted John said: “I don’t know what to say - it’s just brilliant. It’s been quite a stressful week for one reason or another, but everything came together and it was a good race. I struggled a bit after the first pit stop, and got quite a bad weave down Bray Hill and another small moment at Glentramman but, apart from that, the race went to plan.

“Everyone has worked so hard this week, and it’s an amazing feeling to take my seventh TT win and, after only being four laps last year, this feels like a ‘proper’ Superbike TT win. The boys did a great job at the pit stops, so it’s a big thanks to them, Yamaha, Alastair Flanagan, Dunlop and all of our other sponsors, and to get the win is absolutely terrific. It was a great race for the fans, and I have to say thank you to them as well for their support all the way round the course. It’s the perfect start to the week – brilliant!”

There’s little time to celebrate, though, as John will be back out on Monday (tomorrow) for the three-lap Superstock race, due to start at 10:45am, promptly followed at 12:45pm by the first Supersport Junior TT.