Dan Kneen’s strong start to the 2015 Isle of Man TT Races continued on Monday and Tuesday when he took two more top twelve finishes with ninth in Monday’s Supersport and 12th in Tuesday’s Superstock encounter.
After finishing seventh in the opening Superbike race, the Valvoline Racing by Padgetts Honda rider was back in action in the 4-lap Supersport race, which was delayed until Monday evening. An opening lap of 123.732mph saw Dan slot into 11th place but he moved up two places to ninth second time around. Although he wasn’t able to climb any higher in the second half of the race, his final lap of 123.747mph allowed him to take his second top ten finish of the week.
The 4-lap Superstock race was subsequently put back to Tuesday afternoon and it was the bike that Dan had completed the less laps on during practice week. Two opening laps of almost 128mph allowed him to take 12th position and in what proved to be a fairly uneventful race for the Braddan rider this was where he finished at the end of the 150.92-mile race.
Dan Kneen: “I enjoyed the Supersport race and although I didn’t have much practice time on the bike, I got going at the start and got my head down. I plugged away and caught Michael Rutter on the road and although I got held up a bit, we had a good ride round. We caught Cameron Donald up as well and although I lost a bit of time at the pits, I soon got back with them. Cameron was flying by then so I followed him over the Mountain and brought the bike home for another good top ten finish.”
“The Superstock race went ok and again my plan was to get going early on in the race. I caught Ryan Farquhar quite early on but got held up a bit so, after that, I tried to get back into my rhythm as quick as possible. I looked behind me a couple of times and there was no-one behind me but David Johnson and Peter Hickman came out of nowhere so I tried to hang on to them. Given the lack of track time during practice, I’m happy enough with the result.”
Dan’s next race is the second Supersport race which is due to get underway at 10.45pm on Wednesday.
