It was a weird morning and we had a lot of waiting around until the 2pm start for the Superbike. I was ready to go in the morning and would have preferred to have gone then but 2pm eventually came round and we were underway.

My plan was to relax off the start and build my way into the race but I’d only got 100m when the bike went into a massive wobble. I thought the steering damper was broken as the bike was weaving all the way down Bray Hill and when I hit the bottom, my feet were off the pegs. The bike felt awful for those first two laps and my arms began to pump up as i was having to hold on that much. I thought I was going to have to pull in at the pit stop and told the team that.

I saw ‘P9’ on my pitboard so I kept going as I didn’t think that was a bad position and after the pit stop, it was like I was on a different bike. It felt completely different so I don’t know if the tyre pressures were off or if it was bad rear tyre but with a new rear in, I never had any handling issues again. It got my confidence back and I re-passed William Dunlop and I got back into the race. Gary Johnson came the both of us though and he was flying!

We all came into the second pit stop together and I got out first and the bike was spot on again. I sneaked ahead of Gary just before the top of Bray Hill but I didn’t want to hold him up although when I looked behind I’d pulled away from him. At the Gooseneck, I looked again and William was right back with me though.

By Signpost, Gary was back with us so I let him go by. I dropped back a little bit so I could get a bit of clear track and have a real good go on the last lap. William and Gary were about 3-4 seconds ahead of me so I tried to chase them down although we all got backmarkers in some awkward places. Gary ran wide at Guthrie’s and I was thinking to myself ‘what’s he doing out there’ as he was over the white line. The next thing I know, the bike was bouncing around and down he went. I knew it wasn’t a big crash and managed to get by and set about chasing down William again.

It was a pretty decent lap and I thought it could be a 130 but then we got the yellow flags again at Bedstead so I slowed right up. I could see Michael and the other rider laid out on the ground so just cruised round to the finish. It was a strange end to the race but I’ve got to be happy with sixth place in a Superbike race.