Practice
John McGuinness dominated qualifying for the 250cc race, the first to be contested on race day. McGuinness went round the 8.966 mile circuit in a time of 4'57.791, the only rider to break five minutes and qualified on pole by over 3 seconds from the Hondas of Michael Dunlop and Paul Robinson. Hondas took the first eight places on the grid, with Henrik Voit's Aprilia the best non-Honda in ninth. McGuinness also dominated Superbike practice, being fastest both on Tuesday and on Thursday. Having achieved a 4'25.377 on Tuesday, he lowered that mark by over 3 seconds to a 4'22.342 on Thursday. Michael Rutter on the NW200-backed Ducati qualified 2nd on a 4'22.999, with the rest in the 4'24s or higher. This session sets the grid for both Superbike races. Steve Plater qualified on pole for the Supersport races, recording a lap of 4'33.749 on Thursday to put him half a second clear of Alastair Seeley, who qualified second, with Keith Amor qualifying 3rd, to give three different nations placed in the top three places. Amor would go two places better in the qualifying session for the Superstock race. In the fourth session, he set a time of 4'26.446, which would give him the pole by over 1.5 seconds. Seeley was second with his time of 4'28.029 coming in session three and Rutter was third, with a 4'28.138 set in session four. Michael Wilcox was the clear pacesetter in the 125cc qualifying, setting a pole lap of 5'17.528 and was on top by nearly three seconds from the Aprilia of David Lemon with the Hondas of Mark Curtin, Michael Dunlop and Chris Palmer rounding out the top five. Leo Aldersley's Yamaha was fastest in the 400cc session, which occurred at the same time as the 125cc session as those two races are contested in the one race, albeit separated on track. His 5'15.329 was almost three seconds faster than second placed qualifier and fellow Yamaha rider, Oliver Linsdell. Les Shand's Kawasaki was third, with the best Honda belonging to Manxman David Madsen-Mygdal lining up fourth.
Read more about this topic: 2008 North West 200 Races
Famous quotes containing the word practice:
“My paternal grandmother would not light a fire on the Sabbath and piled all Sunday’s washing-up in a bucket, to be dealt with on Monday morning, because the Sabbath was a day of rest—a practice that made my paternal grandfather, the village atheist, as mad as fire. Nevertheless, he willed five quid to the minister, just to be on the safe side.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“She, too, would now swim down the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as the owner of a fine family property. Women’s rights was an excellent doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of such temptation.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)