HM Plant Honda's Steve Plater is using a thumb-operated rear brake in order to stop his bikes wheelieing down the fast parts of The Triangle circuit when he is travelling in excess of 190mph.

The Lincolnshire man will start the Supersport and Superbike races from the second row of the grid after successful qualifying on Tuesday night - even though he had to go to a petrol station to fill up after missing his pitboard, borrowing cash from course incident officer John Blair.

“I missed my pit board and didn’t realise how low I was on fue. Luckily I was able to top up at the filling station in order to get back to the pits,” said Plater. "We are travelling at speeds in excess of 190 mile an hour at times and the front end can easily lift in those conditions. A lot of riders are doing the same and it does seem to work well for us.”