By Supersport TT race 2 report
The second supersport race of TT 2012 started at around 6:30 PM after a lengthy delay caused by disruptive weather! From the start it was the Dunlops William and Michael who took command with William leading the race on his Wilson Craig racing Honda by 2.64 seconds at Glen Helen on lap 1 before mechanical issues forced him to retire from the race. This left Michael Dunlop with around a 4.5 second lead over Cameron Donald in second place with Bruce Anstey holding a solid third place over fellow Padgetts racing rider John Mcguinness.
On lap 2 Michael Dunlop opened up a 8 second lead over Donald in second and although Donald was slowly but surely reeling him in it seemed that Dunlop had the race under control. 3rd at the end of lap 2 was Bruce Anstey with Ryan Farquhar overtaking John Mcguinness into 4th place with the returning Ian Hutchinson holding a fine 7th place just behind Pr1mo Bournemouth Kawasakis James Hillier with Guy Martin behind them both in 8th place at the end of lap 2. Lap 3 beckoned after the pit stops and Donald started to close down the gap to Dunlop.
As lap three went on Dunlop responded to the pace of Donald by starting to open up an unassailable lead that was over 10 seconds. Up to third at the end of lap three was the flyin Ryan Farquhar on his KMR Kawasaki just two seconds in front of Bruce Anstey with John Mcguinness in fifth place with James Hillier still holding onto sixth position. As lap 4 started Dunlop stretched the lead out further to Ramsey with the lead now up to over 12 seconds with Donald still in second place and Farquhar and Anstey battling it out for a podium finish.
At the end of lap 4 Michael Dunlop took the checkered flag to take his 3rd TT win and his second in the supersport class on his Yamaha R6. Cameron Donald finished in second place just over 13 seconds down on Dunlop with Ryan Farquhar only just edging out Bruce Anstey for third place by point 0.001 of a second. In fifth place was John Mcguinness who put in another consistent ride on the Padgetts racing Honda with Ian Hutchinson edging out James Hillier for sixth position on the final on the Swan Yamaha.
8th was Guy Martin on the Suzuki gsx-r 600 with in 9th place Dan Stewart on his Honda cbr-600 with Dan Cooper producing one of the rides of the day finishing in 10th place his best ever TT finish on the Centurion racing Triumph 675 Daytona supersport bike. Another excellent ride by Dean Harrison saw him achieve a 13th place finish on the Ian Bell Motorcycles Yamaha r6. 600 supersport race specialist Ben Wylie achieved his best result of the TT race week so far with a top 15 finish on the Per cup coffee company/Brenin bikes Yamaha r6.
Overall another enjoyable race from what has been a brilliant race week so far at the TT races this year and also a race which saw Michael Dunlop take his third TT win. After all the problems earlier in the week for Michael it was a deserved win for him. We all now hope that the weather is good for Fridays Lightweight TT race and most of all the blue riband race the Senior TT.
By Stevie Rial
