By ‘130 Mph Club’ member, top five Classic TT finisher, Newcomers Manx Grand Prix runner-up, top six TT finisher, Banbridge’s Shaun Anderson Mountain Course racing CV, has many strings to its bow.
Back on Tuesday, Road Racing News enjoyed a decent chat with the genial Royal Enfield employee, who’s set to become a father soon.
Detailing how TT 2024 up till Tuesday (4th June) has been, he stated:
“Hectic I would say, long days, just saying to Robin Hynes the photographer, very Manx Grand Prix esque, so, on and off again practice and when we have had practice, we’ve had been very long days.
The first opening Monday I did 10 laps and I think the Thursday or Friday, eight laps in a day so it’s been quite brutal when we’ve been going, long days waiting around when we haven’t been.
Good solid start to race week on the Supersport with a 13th but we just needed a bit of luck, which we didn’t have in the Superbike.
We only made it to Ramsey on the first lap, but we had good sectors to there, so we were lying tenth and mixing it in, we maybe were fast enough that we could have done a 130 from a standing start, there’s always signs of improvement.”
Fifteen in yesterday’s Royal London 360 Superstock race when astride the KH Hire Honda, Anderson explained why he was forced to retire on lap one of a dramatic RST Superbike encounter.
“Got to the end of Sulby, turned into Ginger Hall and crossed by Glen Duff and the council yard there, I was quite a bit few more RPM higher than I normally am across there and I thought I must be going well.
And then I came back down the gears for Glentramman, you come back to third on the big bike (Team Classic Suzuki) and I came out there and gave it some gas and it was all revs and not much going forward.
So, I knew the jig was up, I tried to recover, made sure we had some free play in the clutch lever but once those big bikes have spun a clutch like that there wasn’t really anything to recover, got to parliament square and pulled in safely, radioed in as a retirement.”
Keen to top the 125-lap mark in today’s weather, course conditions permitting second Supersport race, the concept engineer by profession, summed his present feelings about his next generation middleweight class machine (Butterfields of Skipton Suzuki).
“It’s almost like putting on an old pair of slippers at this stage for me because I started around here on a 750 Suzuki, it was an earlier model at the Manx, but the bike hasn’t changed a whole lot between there and the end of development.
It’s been interesting, getting our head around the control electrics has been a big learning step for everybody involved. I’m thankful for Butterfields of Skipton for sponsoring me the bike and looked after me.
We’re finding our feet obviously it’s suiting Jim Hind very well this week, he’s showing the potential that’s in that bike. We are still a wee bit behind the ball, still had a personal best in Supersport in terms of position and speed but I’d like to crack 125 in that class.
We just need to find a wee bit more speed through the speed trap, just a wee bit more in the chassis balance and we’ll not be far away in the second one, couple of things to change.”
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
