By Four times a TT winner, two times a Classic TT winner, three times a Manx Grand Prix winner, 98 times a race victor at Scarborough, the racing legend that is Chris Palmer is the next racer to take part in Road Racing News, growing in popularity Oliver’s Mount Top 8 series.
The third most successful racer in history at England’s only real roads course, his answers to the Scarborough themed set of questions are as follows:
Q1: First memory of Oliver’s Mount?
“First memory of Oliver’s Mount was I was supposed to go in 1998 and I crashed my road bike, so I had to miss the first meeting so that’s my first proper memory but I did the meeting afterwards and I just loved it straight away.”
Q2: Favourite part about racing at the mount?
“Winning has to be my favourite part and my lap record that has stood for 22 years but it’s just a fantastic venue, friendly good racing, just loved everything about it.”
Q3: Favourite section of Scarborough course?
“Has to probably be the top Esses, especially on the smaller bikes you can really, really use the corner speed to your advantage, so the top Esses or the big Jumps, Jefferies Jumps was obviously awesome to go through as well, so it would be a toss up between those two.”
Q4: Best moment thus far at Scarborough?
“I’ll be honest, we borrowed a 600 once off FC Moore, cause Gary Carswell couldn’t ride there for some reason and I was entered on a 600 and they just loaned me it for that day and we finished on the podium behind McGuinness (John) and Lougher (Ian).
So to be honest even though that wasn’t a win, I found that really satisfying the fact that we could be on the podium on a borrowed 600 after never seeing the bike before we got it out of the van.”
Q5: All time Scarborough racing hero?
“That would have to be a 50/50 split between Ian Lougher and Robert Dunlop. We had some absolutely titanic, fantastic ding dongs and I have the highest respect for both lads, so to split them would be unfair.”
Q6: Is there one machine in particular that you would like to race at Scarborough?
“Something exotic I suppose, it maybe like a 500 Grand Prix bike, two stroke Grand Prix bike to parade or something like that, that would be nice.
I don’t want to go fast anymore but to get out on something iconic that would stand out in your mind forever, so maybe a 500 GP bike or something like that, would be nice.”
Q7: One word to describe Oliver’s Mount?
“Iconic”
Q8: Most respected racing rival at Scarborough?
“It would have to be between Ian Lougher and Robert Dunlop, I can’t split them, cause we had fantastic ding dong battles. I always knew that if they were there I had to be 100 percent top of my game, simple as that.”
Words by Stevie Rial
