By Those who follow his You Tube channel, will know how great a character, the Isle of Wight’s Ryan Whitehall is.
Taking in for the second time the Manx GP, he had an eventful first qualifying stint, sliding off at the Gooseneck. Explaining what happened, the WR Racing rider said:
“It was a complete rider error unfortunately, I just came in a bit with the wrong line, carried too much lean angle, tucked the front, smashed up George’s (Richards) shiny Super Twin, so I’m in the doghouse! But just rider error.
With everything else that went on, it’s not too bad, count your blessings.”
A firm believer that long-term a real road race remains a possibility in his native homeland (Isle of Wight), Whitehall was extremely gracious in chatting about placing third in this year’s Cookstown 100 Grand Final.
“Well, I think that was kind of gifted to me really, Michael (Dunlop) went home, none of the other top boys really turned up, but when you look at lap times, the R1’s working well.
It’s a bit of an animal but it suits my riding style a little bit more, but if I can carry on like that, just chipping away slowly, making my way up.
Hopefully if we can get where we want to go at the end of the year then that might open a few more doors for us.”
Whitehall went onto disclose his expectations (results, lap times) for this week, next week’s MGP outings.
“Yeah, I want to win it! No, if I can get top twenty, faster lap speeds than last year, 115, 116 bracket, would be happy with that.
If I can finish at or above my starting number, would be happy with that, but sort of no heroics. But the Super Twins’ great, out the two (Supersport bike – R6 Yamaha), that’s the one that will get the better result, bike wise.”
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
