Scots ace Keith Amor bounced back from a Wednesday evening practice
crash to declare himself fit and raring to go at the Isle of Man TT
Races after a solid evening of practice on Friday. The Honda rider fell
from his KBMG Superstock Honda exiting Quarterbridge late on in
Wednesday's session suffering a partial tear of the AC joint in his
right shoulder but returned on Friday to put in 4 laps of the Mountain
Course on both his Superbike and Supersport machines.
Practice week had been progressing well for Amor with a lap of
127.531mph on the Honda TT Legends Superbike on Wednesday evening whilst
he was also above 123mph on the Superstock on Tuesday but it all went
wrong late in Wednesday's session when he highsided on the way out of
Quarterbridge after hitting a small patch of oil. The injury required
Keith to sit out Thursday's session (although this was later cancelled
due to an oil spillage) but after some physio and sessions in the
Island's hyperbaric chamber, he was back out on the grid for Friday's
final session, which was bathed in glorious sunshine.
Taking his brand new KBMG Supersport Honda out for the very first time,
Keith put in 3 laps on the 600cc machine, the best of which was
122.660mph, to go 8th fastest on the leaderboard and then did one more
lap on the TT Legends Superbike. Testing his injured shoulder out, Keith
was still able to lap at 127.106mph and was happy enough with his
fitness to confirm his participation in tomorrow's Superbike race.
Talking later, Keith said; "The week started off really well and I was
happy with my times and how the bikes were working, everything was going
along nicely. We made a few changes to the Superbike on Wednesday, which
didn't work out, so I went out on the stocker only to hit a patch of oil
and highsiding into the bushes certainly wasn't part of the plan. The
doctor gave me the all clear so I went out on Friday on the Supersport
bike as I hadn't managed to get a lap in on it due to the crash so had
to put in some laps to qualify! I then came in and went out on the
Superbike and although not 100%, I was able to put in a half decent lap
time. I'm not quite physically strong enough to man handle the bike
through some of the sections so I was having to be a bit careful and
roll it off in places where I normally wouldn't. I'm having to ride a
bit conservatively and that's making it frustrating but I'll give it my
best shot tomorrow and see where we end up."
The 6-lap Superbike race is the first race of the 2011 Isle of Man TT
Races and gets underway at 12.00pm.
