By Ten years since his first TT Races project, Bishop Castle’s Barry Furber determination to reach new Mountain Course racing horizons, continues in abundance.
Unofficially last Wednesday, lapping over the 125-mph lap mark for the first time, Sunday’s six-lap RST Superbike race would see the 2014 Newcomers (B) Manx Grand Prix runner-up, sweep up a bronze replica finish (P24) and a new PB lap-speed/lap-time to boot (125.819/17 minutes 59.548 seconds).
Last week when speaking to Road Racing News, ‘Baz’ stated the following about his DC Motorcycles Newtown backed CBR1000RR Honda.
“We did a-lot of work with the big bike last year and got handling and gearing right.
So, now I’m sort-of trying to get myself into gear with it, the bike’s fine, we don’t need any changes with the bike, it is just a case of picking our way at it now and we are getting there with it.”
Nineteenth in yesterday’s Monster Energy Supersport race, finishing in front of French ace Pierre-Yves Bian, Austria’s top international road race Julian Trummer and King of Imatranajo Erno Kostamo, admitted its’ been a gradual learning process with the Robinson and Sons Timber Ltd, Street Triple 765 RS Triumph.
“We’ve had a-few little issues, just teething problems, and its’ just a different bike to learn, all over again.
Trouble with me is I ride three completely different bikes, so you get off a Twin and jump straight onto the Triumph, which feels completely different and just usual things, getting gearing right.
Then we had a fuel problem last night, which meant we were down on power, so I was hoping to get on it and do 120 mph straight away, but we got up to that last night but with a load of power problems.
So, hopefully when we sort that out today, we will have a bit more power and should move on from there.
Because I don’t want to be doing 120 mph, I want to be doing 124, 125 on it, but like the bike, it handles lovely, so just chip away at it.”
Junior Superbike, Vintage Junior races runner-up at the Pre-TT Classic Road Races at Billown, Furber who has a full compliment of Classic TT steeds lined up (Junior 600, Martin Ireland’s 500 Honda and possibly-a Yesteryear Superbike Ducati), added his honest thoughts about the new Sportbike TT category.
“At-the moment, it’s ok because we are allowed to run Super Twins as well, next year this bike (YZF-R7 Yamaha) it’s getting old now anyway, so we need to do something with it.
But next year, if it goes full Sportbike rules, this would-not be eligible and I can’t see us bother building a Sportbike.
Because it’s going to be so expensive to build something that’s slower than this and there is not going to be a lot of interest for it, at that point we’d probably just concentrate on the two classes and drop the Sportbike, but we will see what the powers that be do with the rules.”
After TT 2026 race week concludes, Furber’s next pencilled in roads scene expeditions, will be at Tandragee, the Southern 100 and the Armoy Road Races.
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
