SuperBike Magazine July 2020
The July issue is packed with awesome content to keep you busy over the remaining days of July. We are hard at work putting our August issue to bed!
The July issue is packed with awesome content to keep you busy over the remaining days of July. We are hard at work putting our August issue to bed!
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1999 - The rear tyre<br />
of Joeys Honda<br />
at the end of the<br />
Championship<br />
Race<br />
rubber from the centre of the<br />
slick started to peel away in the<br />
latter stages of the Solo Championship.<br />
The tyre was in fact<br />
the very same spare Moodie<br />
had in the pits on Senior day but<br />
never used, fitted to a smaller<br />
than standard 161/2-inch wheel.<br />
‘The tyre works superbly for<br />
about 40 miles, then it just<br />
starts to rip up,’ said Dunlop,<br />
after his sixth championship win<br />
in 23 glorious years at Billown.<br />
He hadn’t realised the tyre<br />
had almost worn through until<br />
he stepped off the bike in the<br />
winner’s enclosure. After winning<br />
three titles in a row from<br />
1976-1979, Dunlop only contested<br />
the Southern on a couple of<br />
occasions in the 80s during the<br />
peak of his F1 and Honda Britain<br />
career, but he bounced back<br />
with another win in 1991 and<br />
another two years later. Such<br />
is his experience and supreme<br />
confidence of the 47-year-old<br />
that he never seems to panic.<br />
Even when it appears to be<br />
out sprinted by riders<br />
almost half his age in<br />
the early stages of a<br />
race. It happened in the<br />
Senior Founders race<br />
on Wednesday evening<br />
when he appeared to<br />
be slipping off the back<br />
of the leading trio for a<br />
few laps, then suddenly<br />
there he was at the<br />
sharp end. It was much<br />
the same on Thursday<br />
in the main race of the<br />
week when Blair Degerholm<br />
made the early<br />
running, with Adrian<br />
McFarland and Jason<br />
Griffiths both elbowing<br />
for space alongside<br />
the 23-times TT winner.<br />
Two laps into the<br />
race, though, and Joey<br />
was out in front, and<br />
charging. From thereon<br />
in he was in full control.<br />
Ready to up the pace<br />
when necessary but demoralising<br />
the opposition<br />
in the meantime as<br />
he continued to steam<br />
away into the distance.<br />
McFarland broke free of<br />
the similarly R1 Yamaha<br />
mounted Griffiths after<br />
1999 - Ian Bell and Neil Carpenter on<br />
their way to making history in the<br />
Sidecar Championship<br />
1999 - Joey Dunlop on his way to<br />
winning his sixth Solo Championship<br />
three or four laps, eventually reeling in<br />
Degerholm’s Wilson & Collins Kawasaki.<br />
He was in front of the New Zealander<br />
with four laps to go, but Blair finally<br />
got back ahead as McFarland suffered<br />
problems from of all things, tennis<br />
elbow!<br />
2000 - Blair Degerholm first Kiwi to<br />
sin the Solo Championship<br />
2000: First Kiwi Solo Champion<br />
Blair Degerholm became the first antipodean<br />
to win the Southern ‘100’ Solo<br />
Championship title in the 32-year history<br />
of the race. But the New Zealander<br />
had to smash the outright Billown lap<br />
record on his 12th and final circuit of the<br />
main feature race of the week to deny<br />
an equally determined Welshman, Ian<br />
Lougher, what would have been his first<br />
championship.<br />
The race was a fitting climax to the
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