Although Michael Sweeney’s Saturday time of 19:17.580 with an average speed off 117.338 mph aboard the Yamaha YZF-R6 stands as the top time ahead of Wednesday’s Junior MGP, the competition grew Monday evening.
At Monday’s practice for the 2013 Manx Grand Prix, many riders edged closer to the Irishman’s top time for the Junior MGP, including Stephen McKnight (19:24.856/116.605), Tim Poole (19:26.730/116.418), James Cowton 19:27.227/116.638) and Colin Stephenson 19:30.806/116.012).
In the newcomers A race, Alexander Picket is clearly the man to beat following the 114.810 he set in Thursday’s practice but Anthony Cooper posted his quickest time of the week with 112.730. Callum Collister (109.515), Joe Faragher (106.107) and James Neesom (105.528) all clocked their fastest times in monday nights session, while Ben Rea topped the board in the Newcomers C session with 104.162 from the qualifying session. Rea’s time also nudged him into the Lightweight top five board, topped by Alistair Howarth 106.735) from last Saturday’s session.
In the SuperTwin qualifying session, only Rab Davie of the top five qualified riders improved his time, clocking 110.675 with James Cowton’s 113.041 set in last Saturday’s session the fastest by over a second from Colin Stephenson (111.959).
The Newcomers A, B and C Races away at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, with the Junior MGP race scheduled to be away at 1:30 p.m.. The SuperTwin and Lightweight Race will take place on Friday at 10:15 a.m. with the 90th anniversary meeting concluding with the Senior MGP Race at 2 p.m.
