COWARD FOR CLASSIC SUPERBIKE

Jamie Coward has increased his outings at the 2024 Manx Grand Prix from two races to three having recently added the RST Classic Superbike Race to his schedule.

The triple TT Privateer’s Champion will ride the Team York Suzuki in August Bank Holiday Monday’s four-lap race in addition to the Craven Classic Norton and Honda machines he’ll campaign in the Carole Nash Classic Senior and 2 Wheeling Classics Classic Junior races respectively.

Team York Suzuki, spearheaded by Kevin Pearson, have had a strong presence at the Manx Grand Prix and Classic TT for more than a decade.

Riders have included Gary Johnson, David Johnson, Sam West, Russ Mountford, Mark Buckley and Mike Norbury amongst those to have ridden their Suzuki XR69 and, more recently, GSX-R750 machinery.

Buckley gave the team a second-place finish in 2010 with Mountford taking sixth in 2013 and then improving to third the following year, joining race winer Bruce Anstey and James Hillier on the podium.

The remainder of the 2010s saw both David and Gary Johnson feature prominently on the leaderboard, the former taking fourth and fifth in 2017 and 2015 respectively when he posted a best lap of 123.586mph.

Gary Johnson was forced to retire on several occasions but not before he’d lapped at 123.864mph whilst he also finished fifth in 2016.

Sam West was the last rider to ride the team’s Suzuki XR69 in 2022 with a switch to the newer GSX-R750 last year helping Norbury take 16th in the shortened race.

Coward has been out of luck in the race in recent times but a with a best lap of 124.229mph, set in 2019, and fifth in 2018 and sixth three years earlier, the potential is clear and obvious.

See Jamie on the Team York Suzuki from the hedges. Check out Duke Travel for packages from the UK and further afield, Horst Saiger for German Tours and the Isle of Man Steam Packet for race day day trips.