MOTORCYCLING: East Kirkby's Philp defies misfire to earn Supersport point

Tommy, of East Kirkby, relished the wet conditions in qualifying for his British Supersport race and recorded his best ever grid position of third and a front row start to the nine lap Sprint race on Saturday.

As the lights went out, Tommy got away to a good start but as he rounded turn two he was pushed wide and lost places back to ninth position.

The course car came out on to the track for a couple of laps because of a three bike crash and when the race was back on it became obvious that the Yamaha had encountered a problem as Tommy began to fall back into the clutches of the midfielders.

On the penultimate lap, he was in 16th place but was pushed back a place and it looked as if he would miss out on a points finish. But two of the front runners fell on the final lap which elevated him up to 15th to claim one championship point.

Tommy commented: “We had a misfire in the dry free practice which didn’t show up in the wet qualifying so we thought we had cured it. But the race was run in the dry and the misfire showed up again.

“We were losing power on cornering and that impeded me. But at least I managed to finish in the points.”

Tommy began Sunday’s feature race from the eighth row and completed the first lap in 24th place. He dropped back a place before starting his move forward. On lap four, he was up to 23rd and one lap later 22nd.

By lap nine he had moved through to 19th and on the penultimate lap was up to 17th, crossing the finish line in that position, just missing out on another points finish.

The next round is at Thruxton on July 24.