SuperBike Magazine July 2020

1980: Silver Jubilee year
Londoner Dave Dean lead from start to
finish to win the Solo Championship, riding
a 750cc Yamaha, he had a comfortable
win over Steve Cull on his 500 Suzuki, with
fellow Irishman Conor McGinn, 351 Yamaha,
taking third spot.
Lowry Burton and Martin Murphy aboard
their Yamaha won the Sidecar Championship.
They lead from start to finish, setting
new lap and race records. John Evans and
Tony Smith on a Yamaha took second place
with Arthur Baker and John Tindell, also
Yamaha mounted, third.
1983: Ton barrier broken!
Twenty-eight years after Terry Shepherd
won the first Southern ‘100’ and set the
first-ever fastest lap at 80 miles per hour,
Brian Reid, from Banbridge, Northern Ireland,
finally broke the 100 mark on the last
lap of his winning ride in the Unlimited race.
1987: Changes in Programme
1987 saw a re-vamp of the race programme,
firstly the two sidecar heats were dropped
and replaced with a two leg Championship,
and both over nine laps, the first leg of
which was the 200th race in the Southern
100 history. The 250cc and 350cc races
were run concurrently. Classic machines
were introduced to the Billown course,
which was to prove extremely popular. Most
important, though was the introduction of
‘Match Races’, comprising of teams from
England, Ireland, the ‘Rest of Britain’ and
of course the Isle of Man. These races,
sponsored by the Steam Packet Company,
were to be run over two, 12-lap legs. Nine
races in all, which included the established
1300cc race, the Solo Founders and the
‘blue-riband’ event of the meeting the Solo
Championship.
The Pre-TT Classic Road Races came
into being in 1988 at the request of the
then TT organisers, the then Auto Cycle
Union, Classics having first appeared on the
Billown course twelve months earlier at
the popular Southern ‘100’ Road Races.’ The
first TT Classic Races were held on the 31st
May 1988, the meeting consisting of four
races, 250cc/350c; 500cc; Unlimited and
Sidecars and attracted 115 entries in all.
1990: Leach Dominates!
The new decade saw a revamp of the race
programme, the Match Races, were no
more in the 11-race programme, which now
included an additional Sidecar Championship,
for Formula 2 machines. The 125cc
class returned after an absence of 25-years
– to this class was added the new 400cc
Supersport class, plus the 600cc Supersport
category, whilst the Solo Founders
race was now split into two races, one for
Junior, the 125/400 and 350cc machines; the
1995 - Bob Jackson leads Simon Beck
and Paul Hunt on the way to winning
his first Solo Championship
Senior catering for the 600s and unlimited
machines up to 1300cc.
A new race in the 1992 Southern ‘100’ was
the Regal 600cc Championship Race, part of
one of the main championships, which had
been running a number of years in the Motor
Cycle Union of Ireland (MCUI), events. Phillip
McCallen played a ‘cat and mouse’ game,
turning up the wick in the latter stages of
the race to ensure victory over rival Johnny
Rea in the only round of the ‘Regal’ Championship
outside Ulster, pipping Rea by just
under a second at the chequered cloth.
Bob Jackson, always a good man on a 600,
finished third, with Derek Young a superb
fourth after being last in the early stages of
the nine-lap race, setting a new lap record
at 99.73 mph in the process. Cheshire’s Tim
Poole was fifth and Kenny Harrison sixth, on
a one off 600 ride.
1991 saw a new event added to the annual
TT Festival, which effectively extended the
competitive TT period by one day. The “Isle of
Man Steam Packet Company National Road
Races’ were introduced to provide entertainment
for enthusiasts who were staying
on the Island after the end of the TT Races,
as it was at the time proving impossible to
‘evacuate the many thousands of bikers in a
day or two’, as once was the case.
So what better way to keep the fans of road
racing occupied, than to promote an event
that would achieve this aim, along with
providing the chance for the competitors
who had pitted their skills around the most
famous 37.73 mile ribbon of road in the world
for the past two weeks, to attempt to recoup
some of their expenses with a generous
prize fund.
The Steam Packet Company requested
the organisers of the Southern ‘100’ Races
and the Pre-TT Classic Races, held on the
4.25-mile Billown Circuit, in the south of the
Island, if they would be prepared to run an
extra meeting. The discussions resulting in
the inaugural event being run on Saturday
8th June 1991.
1995: 40th Anniversary
The fortieth running of the Southern ‘100’
brought many past champions back to the
Billown circuit to celebrate the occasion,
however the weather played havoc with the
first evening’s racing – a complete washout –
caused the abandonment of the programme,
leaving the officials the task of re-scheduling
the Wednesday races. Conditions were a
whole lot better, 24-hours later and the 40th
anniversary meeting got off to a cracking
start.
Bob Jackson on the McAdoo Kawasaki
won his first Solo Championship.
1999: Joey’s sixth Solo Championship!
Plumping for the identical compound rear
Dunlop tyre as Jim Moodie did in the Senior
TT, Joey Dunlop almost suffered the same
fate as his Honda Britain team-mate when