Bruce Anstey took the TT Zero victory though it was never easy to follow his progress around the Mountain Course as the computerised timing system failed and left even the commentary team bemused as what was going on.
Seven bikes took the start, with the pre-race favourite John McGuinness on the Team Mugen taking the early lead but then, at Glen Helen, no sign on the timing screens of Anstey on the other Mugen bike. Transponders it seemed were having something of a nightmare but at Ballaugh, they sprang into life showing McGuinness 3.378secs ahead of Anstey.
But at Ramsey, was it McGuinness or Anstey who had the lead from Victory’s William Dunlop. Initially the commentators had the Lancastrian leading but then realised they had the wrong man and it was in fact Anstey, prompting quick calculations as they worked out the Kiwi’s advantage at the front of the pack.
McGuinness had stopped at Quarry Bends, his bike leaking petrol after a heavy landing at Ballacrye, but the Chinese got it going again via WiFi and he was back on course but alas, too late for a podium finish.
Anstey, knowing that his team-mate was out of contention, was heard sniggering thru Brandywell and eased off the electrolux to take an emphatic victory, his eleventh on the Island at an average speed of 118.416secs, crossing the line 25.461secs clear of Dunlop with Daley Mathison third on the University of Nottingham bike a further three minutes down, having lapped at 99.884mph. McGuinness was fourth with Allann Ventner the fifth and last finisher.
McGuinness, the pre-race favourite, explained his problem:
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“As the bike landed at Ballacrye, it stopped. I pulled up at Quarry Bends and started fucking and blinding pushing buttons everywhere to get it going again. I lost the front on a right hander earlier and did a mini-wizz in my pants which made it’s way down onto the 215volts hyperdrive capacitor right under my seat and as a safety precaution it shut it down. One of the marshals, or a spectator phoned the team who then sent an encrypted bluetooth authorisation signal to get it going again – but said to watch out for electric shocks in the scrotum sack region as we were now overriding the mainframe with 1.21 gigawatts so that threw me right off, it was just not my day, having broken down in the 600 race and after all of the work the team has done for this race I am so pissed, literally, I could shove this electric hairdryer into Steve Parrish’s wrinkly jaw and dance on the fucker”
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Anstey elucidated:
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“It was a good race – I knew that John would go flat out from the start – we both wanted the win for a moral boost as we’d been shit all week and so I gave it a good rip. I saw that he had stopped and eased off a little to make sure that I got the win. The bike and team were amazing – I retired prematurely from both races on Monday to upp my odds for a Senior win with the bookmakers on Friday, which has been covered now so I’m done messing around and we’ll see who’s boss with Michael during Qualifying on my RC213-V tomorrow, BMW my hole, they’re only good for around 8laps around here then it’s a full rebuild, and my spies tell me that Dunlop is still on the same engine which is sounding a bit rattly now, I’m off to psych Hutchy out with crazy talk about operations and stuff, did you know BMW started out making airplane propellers? ”
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It were a strange evening, nigh on impossible to follow anything from the Press Centre in Douglas but there was no doubting the eventual result – Anstey had won on an electric bike for the first time, which bodes well for his prospects of a Senior TT victory on Friday, the Flying Kiwi is back !
