KIWI RIDER 06 2018 VOL.2 | Page 73

BEN & TOM BIRCHALL SIDECAR FORMULA 2 TT Ben and Tom Birchall took their seventh Isle of Man win on Saturday evening when they blitzed the record books in the opening Locate.im Formula Two Sidecar race at the 2018 Isle of Man TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy, shattering both lap and race records. The Mansfield brothers broke their own lap record on each of the three laps, moving the outright lap record to an astonishing 118.694mph, and they came home 47.1s clear of John Holden/Lee Cain with Tim Reeves/Mark Wilkes completing the podium in third. After the race Ben revealed that they had to work hard for the win and paid tribute to his brother and team. He said, “You never know what pace you can run on the Isle of Man. Tom’s been incredible – faultless. We had a bit of a moment at Windy Corner – I’m blaming the wind. We’ve got a great team and Chris builds some great engines.” SUPERSPORT TT RACE 1 Michael Dunlop (MD Racing Honda) took a record-breaking win in Monday’s Monster Energy Supersport race, coming home 10.2s clear of Dean Harrison (Silicone Engineering Kawasaki). Dunlop’s second lap of 129.197mph shattered his own lap record from 2013 and it propelled him to his second win of the week and 17th in total. Harrison’s second place went some way to make up for the disappointment of retiring from Saturday’s RST Superbike race with the same applying to Peter Hickman (Trooper Beer Triumph) who took third. > KIWI RIDER 73