Stroud's Dan Cooper ended his 2015 Isle of Man TT Races campaign on a high on Friday as he not only took his best ever finish around the Mountain Course but also clinched the TT Privateer's Championship. The 27-year old took sixth place in the Lightweight race and then wrapped up the Privateer's title in the Senior to crown an excellent week of racing on the island.

Riding the same Kawasaki that he rode twelve months ago, Dan was looking to challenge for a podium finish in Friday morning's Lightweight race and an opening lap of 117.116mph placed him in seventh place as he pitted for fuel. He briefly dropped back to eighth place and although a rostrum was out of reach, his final lap of 118.085mph, his best in the class, enabled him to finish in a career best sixth place.

The 6-lap Senior race soon followed but it was red flagged on the second lap after an incident involving Jamie Hamilton and re-started over the shorter distance of four laps. With the accident happening just in front of Dan, he was understandably de-tuned a little for the re-start but he ran in the top twenty throughout and, aided by a new personal best lap around the 37.73-mile course of 126.966mph, he was rewarded with 17th place. With 15th in Wednesday's Supersport race as well, it meant that not only had he finished all six of his races inside the top 20, he'd also won the coveted TT Privateer's Championship by the comfortable margin of 27 points.

Dan Cooper: "I'm delighted to have won the TT Privateer's Championship and it makes all the hard work and effort we've put in worth it. It's the first time I've come to the TT with my own team and it's been a great week - to finish all six races is no mean feat and to finish all of them inside the top twenty even more so. I've improved my lap speeds in all of the classes and throughly enjoyed myself again."

"I was a little disappointed with my sixth place in the Lightweight race as I felt I had a good chance of a podium but everyone upped their pace this year and although I did over 118mph, the front boys were doing almost 121mph! The Senior started ok but seeing Jamie's crash really put me off and in the re-start I just wanted to get to the finish. I pretty much cruised round so I was very happy to finish 17th and set another personal best. All the team have worked really hard and it's great to finish with the Championship as it shows we're the 'best of the rest' after all the factory-supported teams. Roll on TT2016!"

Pictures by Mark 'Wally' Walters.