TT sidecar ace Allan Schofield didn't have a lot of luck in this year's event over in the Isle of Man.

He blew up two engines, one of them twice, had to pull out of his first race on the first lap and was only able to enter his second event after a colleague shipped out another engine for him to use.

It was a case of third time lucky for Allan, who hails from York Street in Bury -- but even then things didn't go all that smoothly.

"We finished fifth," said Allan. "We were second, two seconds down on the leader on the first lap, then the engine started playing up. It started overheating.

"Because I had only borrowed the engine, I thought it best to take it easy, so I just nursed it round for the rest of the three-lap race and we finished fifth, but at least we got round!"

"Overall, we didn't feature because of not finishing that first race. The fastest lap we did was 106mph -- that was the first lap on Monday in the last race."

Monday's race was delayed because of rain and mist descending on the island. Allan and his sidekick, Ian Simons from Consett, were due off at 2pm, but it was 5.15pm before they eventually raced away.

"It was wet through going towards Ramsey and the mountain was a bit misty, but there were no problems after that.

"It was our fourth year at the TT," added Allan. "Our best year was when we finished fourth in Race A last year and our fastest lap ever is 108mph."

Now Allan is planning for next year -- and hoping not to blow it!