Despite the dominance of Yamahas, Kawasakis, and Hondas, Triumph have still got a lot to hold their head up about with a very creditable 6th and 9th places in Monday's TT Supersport race, though not through any official factory teams.
Lee Johnston, from Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, is riding the East Coast Racing Triumph Daytona 675R and has been putting in some exceptional performances. He was top of the timing sheets on Wednesday's practice and managed to bring the Triumph home in a very respectable 6th place and an average speed of 123.125 mph. East Coast Racing is owned and managed by none other than Phil Read and has been going since 2010 when they supported Patrick McDougall in the British Supersport Championship. Since then they have competed at the North West 200, the Ulster Grand Prix, and the Isle of Man TT where they managed to get a podium finish in 2015. Lee Johnston has been associated with East Coast Racing since 2011, and the 27 year old is improving with each year with his first international win coming in 2014 at the North West 200.
Gary Johnson, from Lincolnshire, is riding the T3 Racing Triumph Daytona 675R and brought it home in 9th place, at an average speed of 121.421 mph, after some technical difficulties in the pits at the end of lap 2. The pitstop issue meant that he had a lot of time to make up to have any chance of making it to the top ten, but he pulled out all the stops to get the tenth spot and was promoted to 9th after Michael Dunlop's disqualification. T3 Racing are a Kent based team run by Tony Scott that specialise in Triumph tuning and performance modifications. They were also responsible for running the Triumph Triple Challenge from 2008 to 2014 and are currently Triumph's Official Race Support Centre - if you're registered with the Triumph Race Program then you can get discounted race parts from them. They are hoping to start a new one-make race series in 2017 using their own M2-11 light-weight Moto2 style machine which also uses Triumph's 675 engine. Gary Johnson has already put Triumph on the top step of the podium in 2014 and despite suffering in a crash a few days later the 36 year old still is still as competitive as ever.
Let's see what Wednesday's race brings.
Update:
Lee Johnston and Gary Johnson managed another 6th and 9th place respectively in Wednesday's Supersport race.
