Steve Plater’s historic 2009 Senior TT victory
On 12th June 2009 Steve Plater rode his Honda Fireblade to an historic Senior TT win, including a new race record and a sector record that stood for nine years!
Stece Plater's historic 2009 IOM TT WIn
Stece Plater's historic 2009 IOM TT WIn
Steve Plater was a latecomer to the Isle of Man TT: he was 34 years old when he rode his first competitive lap of the Mountain course in June 2007. However, Plater had been riding bikes on the road for many years, so he had a natural affinity for hurtling between the hedgerows.
Contesting the TT hadn’t been on his mind until Honda invited him to the event a few years earlier. “They said come over, have a look and see what you think,” recalls the 47-year-old. “They got me in the garden at the bottom of Bray Hill and a few other places and that made up my mind to start talks with the Isle of Man.”
Plater was a fast learner. He took his first TT victory on his second visit – in the opening Supersport race of 2008 – and returned in 2009 as team-mate to John McGuinness in the HM Plant Honda team, riding CBR1000RR Fireblades in the Superbike, Superstock and Senior races and a CBR600RR in the Supersport races.
He started race week with a fine second place to McGuinness in the Superbike TT, after which the podium finishers were presented with their garlands by MotoGP legends Valentino Rossi and Giacomo Agostini. His next three outings were less impressive – three fourth place finishes in the Superstock race and both Supersport races. By the end of the week he was more fired up than ever for the big one: The Senior.
“In the Superbike race I broke the records for sectors three and four [Ramsey to the Bungalow and Bungalow to Cronk ny Mona], but I knew I wasn’t fast enough in the first three sectors, so I was trying to find a way to excel in those sectors.
I struggled the most at the start. At the TT the bike always feels horrible from a standing start because you’ve got 24 litres of fuel and lukewarm tyres, so it’s really tough to get in that comfort zone early on. Fair to say I wasn’t clear in my mind could we beat John in the Senior but knew I was getting closer.
At the first pit stop [after two of six laps] everything was tickety-boo. I’m not saying I was going to catch John, but he was within reach. I just needed to be relaxed and go as fast as I could to keep the pressure on.”
When Plater returned to the pits for his second stop at the end of lap four his crew told him something he hadn’t expected to hear: McGuinness was out, side-lined by a broken final drive chain.
“I cannot explain how long those last two laps felt!” adds Plater. “It was unbelievably hard to keep concentration, because it’s the Senior! It’s not a Supersport or Superstock race, it’s the one everyone wants to win!
I was still under some pressure from Conor Cummins and this was when my experience of endurance racing paid dividends, because in endurance you’re riding for a long time at a very high pace – you’ve got to be aggressive but at the same time smooth. So, I knuckled down, and I was clinically smooth, better than I’d been in the Superbike race.
My dad was pit-boarding for me at the Bungalow. I’ll never forget when I got my last signal there: I thought, Christ, please don’t run out of fuel! And although I was fully confident in the bike, I was feeling every little vibration. It was a long way back to the finish.”
Plater won the race with a new race record of 128.278mph. Afterwards his life went into a blur: podium, post-race chat with VIP guests, presentation behind the grandstand and so on.
“All of a sudden it was half past eight. My dad rang and told me he was down in Queens on the front. I said I’ll meet you there for a pint. I walked down from the paddock and for half of it I was in tears, because that’s when the penny dropped about what I’d achieved.”
Remarkably the sector-four record set by Plater that week stood for nine years, until current outright lap-record holder Peter Hickman broke it in 2018.
“I was at one with that part of the track because I was always good in the real fast, brave sections,” Plater concludes. “Every time I used to come into Ramsey hairpin it was, here we go, lets rock and roll.”
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