From a press release issued by Honda Racing:

Day two Isle of Man TT Festival
June 2, 2003

Palmer and McGuinness Victorious for Honda

Chris Palmer and Shaun Harris both enjoyed maiden glory as the Isle of Man TT Racing Festival continued on a busy day that also brought a third victory for John McGuinness.

Lancastrian McGuinness was delighted with his performance, especially as he had only clinched the deal to bring his race winning Honda to the Island on the Wednesday of practice week, and clocked only three laps aboard it prior to the race.

That hardly showed as McGuinness set the pace throughout the four lap Lightweight 400TT, always ahead of the action as Ryan Farquhar tried everything he knew to reel him in, but that pursuit was in vain, as he trailed into the pits for the half distance fuelling halt some 22 seconds down.

McGuinness was cruising it, taking the victory from Richard Britton, with Farquhar having to settle for the first of his two third placings of the day.

“That was a fantastic race there were absolutely no problems it was just a case of getting my head down and getting on with it and I had the luxury of being able to turn it down a bit on the last lap.” McGuinness said.

“I only sorted the deal for the bike last week and had no time to work on the settings, but that did not matter after the disappointment of Saturday when I finished third, this was great the bike was absolutely flying.” Concluded the Lancastrian.

Honda RS125R rider Palmer, having shrugged aside the frustrations of a three hour delay to the start of the 125cc Ultralightweight race because of low cloud, was another man in a hurry to romp to victory. First he had to overcome the speedy challenge of Michael Wilcox, but he was ahead of the Lincoln rider just into the second lap, and then powered into the distance.

Now living at Castetown, Palmer had vowed back in 1991 when he twice crashed, never to race at the Island again. He changed his mind last year, and it paid dividends, with the former British champion saying . “I never dreamt that I would win a TT, and now I live here, it would be rude not to ride here wouldn’t it.”

Harris, riding a big Suzuki, was another comfortable winner, leading throughout the three lap 1000 Production TT to head up a Kiwi one-two ahead of Bruce Anstey. He was ahead from the start, though the threat of Saturday’s TT Formula 1 race of Adrian Archibald was growing until the third placed Ulsterman ran out of fuel yards from his scheduled pit-stop after two laps.

He ‘legged’ the bike back, but had lost vital seconds. Harris and Anstey made the most of it as they forged clear with Farquhar taking third, ahead of Richard Britton with Chris Heath fifth after Ian Lougher had retired at Bungalow with machine problems.

“I knew that I would win–the bike was superbly
prepared. That was not a case of being cocky, rather being totally confident. I have been trying to win here for ten years, and knew this would be my race. There will be no celebrations though, there are more races to be won this week,” said Harris while Anstey, having to settle for second best commented: “the bike went well but it was a bit windy out there.”

Hard luck story of the race belonged to McGuinness. He retired after two laps, totally exhausted. His Ducati had run out of fuel and he had pushed it the half mile from Governors to the pits, and was unable to continue.

Results:
125cc TT four laps
1 Chris Palmer, Honda, 1:23:20.56
2 Michael Wilcox, Honda, 1:24:00.46
3 Ian Lougher, Honda, 1:24:21.03
4 Robert Dunlop, Honda, 1:24:47.24
5 Nigel Beattie, Honda, 1:27:15.22
6 Paul Owen, Honda, 1:28:43.71
7 Ted Roebuck, Honda, 1:28:51.06
8 Nigel Moore, Honda, 1:29:12.02
9 Mark Tyrrell, Honda, 1:29:30.66
10 Matt Jackson, 1:29:53.77

Lightweight 400 TT four laps
1 John McGuinness, Honda, 1:22:40.97
2 Richard Britton, Honda, 1:23:07.29
3 Ryan Farquhar, Kawasaki, 1:23:23.21
4 David Madsen-Mygdal, Honda, 1:24:28.95
5 Robert J Price, Yamaha, 1:26:00.41
6 Alan Bennie, Yamaha, 1:27:34.27
7 Craig McLean, Yamaha, 1:27:53.95
8 Michael Hose, Kawasaki, 1:28:05.57
9 Peter Jarmann, Kawasaki, 1:28:21.25
10 Robert A Price, Yamaha, 1:28:32.77

1000cc Production TT three laps
1 Shaun Harris, Suzuki, 55:39.38
2 Bruce Anstey, Suzuki, 55:55.42
3 Ryan Farquhar, Suzuki, 56:10.50
4 Richard Britton, Suzuki, 56:20.87
5 Chris Heath, Suzuki, 56:52.84
6 Jason Griffiths, 57:07.66
7 Paul Hunt, Suzuki, 57:26.07
8 Adrian Archibald, Suzuki, 57:27 51
9 Martin Finnegan, Suzuki, 57:42.87
10 Colin Breeze, Suzuki, 58:31.75