By Runners up from the Historic Senior, Inaugural Junior 600 contests, Shaun Anderson (Beugger Racing Paton/Stanford Racing Suzuki), TT Privateers Champion Barry ‘Baz’ Furber (DC Auto Repairs Newtown Suzuki/Robinson Timber Yamaha/Martin Ireland Racing Honda) latest Classic TT odysseys saw both, underline their established Mountain Course racing acumen.
Prior to qualifying and race action, Road Racing News was able to gain their perspectives on a range of topics.
Conversation showcased underneath:
Road Racing News:
First and foremost, how has the summer been, road racing wise.
Barry:
“It’s been hectic we’ve been everywhere, its’ been good, weather been testing in most places but dry week this week would be nice.”
Shaun:
“Bit quieter for me, I’ve only TT, Tandragee, got a couple of private tests for bikes for coming here, this will be third race of the summer so little bit quieter for me.”
Road Racing News:
Is there any reason for the livery on the Yamaha (Baz – Junior 600 mount)
Barry:
“It’s a road bike colour scheme so we just thought we’d stick with the period and keep it the same.”
Road Racing News:
You’re both looking forward to it, every time you go around the Mountain Course.
Barry:
“Just waiting for the weather now, said it’s not going to happen tonight but wait and see.”
Shaun:
“We’ve used up all our sun credits over the summer unfortunately! As soon as you bring a motorbike to this island it pretty much rains!”
Road Racing News:
Your back at Scarborough (Shaun)
Shaun:
“I had the tie-up with the Moto Twelve guys through Eddie Roberts at the TT for the Sportbike and Eddie contacted me, would you be interested in riding at Scarborough, haven’t done Scarborough since 2023.
So, I thought I knew Andy and the club, it’s obviously 80th Anniversary etc, think the grids should pretty-big and full.
It’s an interesting place to ride Scarborough, I still haven’t fully fallen in love with it but it was more interesting than I thought it would be, I wanted to give it a taste and I said I would go back and always near the end of the season, your always shy on funds and time and all the rest, so I thought when the opportunity came up this year why not give it a run.”
Road Racing News:
Will you have the 750 Suzuki?
Shaun:
“That’s yet to be defined, when I was speaking to Andy at the club, he said would you be interested in it and I said I would, but I said the bike’s currently receiving some updates post TT.
So, given the schedule of getting back here and then having less than a week because it’s a three-day event, am not 100 percent sure if we are going to be able to make that or not.”
Road Racing News:
It’s a hectic schedule, are you at the Gold Cup Barry?
Barry:
“Yeah, it’s tight for everybody, I think I get home early hours of Tuesday morning, go to work for a couple of days, got to be in Scarborough on Thursday night but got to do it while you can.”
Road Racing News:
But you had a good Mid Antrim 150, particularly that Super Twins race.
Barry:
“Good fun there, cracking little place would definitely-go-back there, really enjoyed it, again the weather played its part with one dry day.
But great event, shame it wasn’t better supported but I think that was because of the trouble they had there in the past, people weren’t sure it was going to go ahead and stuff.”
Road Racing News:
Another good Tandragee for you (Shaun), won the Super Twins race and you got on the podium on the 600.
Shaun:
“It’s home for me, seem to perform reasonably well there, I think luck fell in my favour in the Super Twins race. It was-definitely mixed conditions shall we say. Thankfully I had a more reserved choice with my tyre I had a supercorsa in, couple of mad men had slicks in.
I’m relatively fortunate that I have done quite a few laps around there on scrubbed supercorsas in my youth, so I had an idea of how much grip there should be. Then getting the podium on the Supersport bike was good because it’s pretty tight at the front, beating Micko (Sweeney) and the guys who do a lot of the nationals is tough going.
Also, a bit of an experiment, we were team-mates in Trevor Scott’s team on the twin, and I was riding the RSV4 the big bike for Trevor and you (Barry) had a run on it at Mid Antrim.
So, we are trying to steer him, give him a wee bit of a direction in development and thoughts because the last couple of years he has had guys who have should I say less experience on big bikes in road racing.
I think he was just looking for guys who have experienced other big bikes on the roads and see where he goes from there because it’s quite an interesting project is that.”
Barry:
“And you proved it at Tandragee, you went really well on it.”
Shaun:
“Think we made big steps and that’s actually why I am here, I was going to get a chat with you to see what your thoughts were.”
Barry:
“It’s a fair point it’s just different to everything else.”
Road Racing News:
Is it possible either of you will be on the Aprilia next year for Trevor at the TT?
Shaun:
“No, I already have a deal done for next year, it would be a bike of interest, I rode for Trevor many moons ago, when he was running the 550’s on the island so our friendship runs a long time back so it was a case of when he asked me, it was more out of meeting up with old friends then wanting to do something on a bigger scale.
We also said after that we would try and sort something out and do a bit more testing on it and see where we can go with that project.”
Road Racing News:
For both of you, do you think it’s the right way to go the class (Super Twins) the Sportbike, or should it be in the middle in Super Twin/Sportbike?
Barry:
“The whole Sportbike, Super Twin thing, I think most people building the bikes would rather them stay Super Twin, maybe some of the riders would prefer it to be Sportbike because everybody is going to be technically more-even.
I’m not interested in building a Sportbike, if it stayed Super Twin, I’d build a Super Twin but the Sportbike thing they are all just the same and they all cost a massive amount of money to build anyway, I won’t be building one myself.”
Shaun:
“From a technical point of view Super Twins is probably the last open class were you can really experiment.
Big bikes now, you see so many guys, even the top guys are on these hybrid bikes and the majority of us more normal riders are on stockers across the four races at the TT and any of the big international meetings and Supersport is quite buttoned down as well in terms of the regulations for next gen.
So, for the guys who enjoy trying to think outside the box a bit more and experiment with bikes, the Super Twins is the last sort of bastion of that.
I think from an organisers point of view I can understand having that uniformity of the rules for both British Championship and even World Championship for Sportbike, I’m sure it’s a dream for the organisers to have the majority of the British Championship in Sportbike and a few World teams roll off the ferry and bring their bikes to the Isle of Man.
You can understand the appeal from that, in terms of it been appealing for the riders it would be an interesting class if there were all on balanced Sportbikes, I think the regulations this year at the TT for the Sportbikes were a bit up in the air and a bit mixed.
So, I think we’re all sort of passing the time just waiting to see what decision will go, I mean eventually I think Sportbikes are sort of here to say at international level and national level but that’s not to say that there isn’t another three or four or five years out of the Twins that’s possible.”
Road Racing News:
Final question for both of you, in terms of your expectations for the event, any main goals?
Barry:
“No, not yet, we’ll see how the first night goes like and go from there.
I think, obviously most people in this new 600 class, everything’s fresh so there is going to be a lot of chopping and changing, seeing how things go.
If I can get my Classic Superbike in the top ten again, I would be very happy but there is a lot of stiff competition in that class now, so we’ll see.”
Shaun:
“Like Baz says, to be honest finishing the races, given we had a pretty tough 2025, I know that if the Beugger Paton runs well we will be competitive in that class so we will be in the mix.
The SRAD is a new project so we’ll sort of just have to see, hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we get a few miles and then I get a better feeling for where I want to be on that bike, once I turned a couple of laps on it.”
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
