By After upper ranking results, race victory near misses across the Briggs Equipment Northwest 200, confidence levels are increasing within the Honda Racing UK fold, ahead of this year’s TT Races.
Amongst the undisputed top exponents of last week’s Triangle course contests, Dean Harrison finished runner-up in five races.
The now 14 times NW200 podium finisher, admitted he was equally pleased, frustrated when summing up Saturday’s Superbike x2/Supersport/Superstock encounters.
“I’m equally pleased and frustrated, really, because we managed to get on top of a lot of the issues from Thursday – I was much better able to stay in the slipstream and get up to the front in the Supersport race for example.
But then that makes coming so close to a win all-the more painful in some ways. But overall, five podiums in seven races at this event, looking at the strength of the competition and the quality of the riders around me, has got to be a positive.
The team has built a fantastic set of road racing bikes, both the Superbike and stock Fireblades are a pleasure to hustle round a big course like this, and the CBR600RR is really coming on in leaps and bounds.
We’re in among those few teams with a real chance to win at road racing and we can now look forward to the TT with a fair bit of confidence in ourselves and in the bikes.”
For team-mate, John McGuinness MBE there was also a multitude of positive exploits, principally banking a new personal best NW200 lap-speed of 122.314 mph (4 minutes 24.009 seconds) on route to placing sixth in the feature Superbike race.
Ebullient about 2025 NW200 explorations, which marked 31 years since he made his event debut, the Morecambe international road racing legend, stated:
“I always love racing here, but I’ve never been the greatest Northwest rider in the world. You’ve got British Superbike riders, you’ve got the best road racing riders in the world, it’s hard out there, so to run as competitively as we have and to set my best-ever lap time on this circuit, must be a positive.
I’ve enjoyed every session; the bikes have never missed a beat and a huge shout out to my teammate. He didn’t get his first North West 200 win, but it wasn’t for the want of trying. For me, finishing all five races that I started was a big positive – not many riders managed that this weekend.
Being sixth of seventh in this crowd is no disappointment at all, and it’s all building momentum towards the TT.
The bike feels better and I’m bike-fit, I didn’t feel my strength fading. The TT is different gravy but it’s always a pleasure to be at the Northwest.”
Quotes courtesy of Honda Racing UK press team.
Photo credit: Derek Wilson
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
