After three nights of practice so far, Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance are having an eventful time at the 2009 Isle of Man TT Races with a number of small problems affecting their progress. With Saturday night's session untimed, Tim was able to put in a nice. steady lap to ease him back into the Mountain Course in preparation for Monday evening's timed session.
 
A good first lap looked to be on the cards until an air pressure sensor broke towards the end of the lap and he was forced to coast in from Hillberry. His lap was timed at 107.818mph so would have comfortably been in excess of 110mph had the problem not occurred. He pulled in and fixed the problem before heading out for another lap but on this occasion the motor stopped at keppel Gate. Closer inspection revealed that a filter inside the lift pump, which supplies the main fuel pump, had become blocked.
 
On Tuesday, Reeves again set off for a good lap but as he exited Quarry Bends, the throttle cable broke and he pulled in at the Sulby Glen Hotel. The kindness of a young spectator allowed Tim to borrow a lawnmower cable and he eventually got going although his lap took in excess of 50 minutes and he was unable to make it out in time for a second lap.
 
"I think I need to go and see the Manx fairies to improve our luck! There's nothing major going wrong, just small problems that tend to only happen at the TT but when the bike's been going, it's felt really good and Monday evening's second lap felt like it was going to be my quickest ever," said Reeves.

"I know we're there or thereabouts so it would be nice to get a flying lap in to see exactly where we are. When we stopped on Tuesday, I thought that was the night over and we were all set to have a pint of lager but a 15-year old girl had heard what the problem was and asked if a lawnmower cable would work.

"I didn't think it would but she was insistent that I go and have a look at her Dad's garage and it turned out he was a Honda Flymo dealer. There were parts everywhere so she rang her Dad, who was marshalling at Quarry Bends, and he told us where the bits were. We fixed the cable and managed to get going again but by the time we'd got back, we missed a second lap by about two minutes.
 
"Like I say, we're feeling good so, hopefully, that's the end of the problems and we can get some good laps in during the three remaining sessions so we're 100% ready for the first race on Saturday."