Davey Todd rounded off what was a near-perfect return to the Southern 100 with victory in the Solo Championship race on Thursday afternoon.

This brought the Saltburn man’s tally for the Isle of Man Steam Packet-sponsored meeting to five wins on the Milenco by Padgett’s Motorcycles Hondas.

In perfect conditions, Todd made the better start and led main rival Dean Harrison by one second at the end of lap one, followed by Michael Dunlop at a similar distance.

Harrison was six tenths of a second faster on lap two and continued to reel the Fireblade man in.

The DAO Kawasaki Racing star, who had won the previous three Solo Championship races at the Southern 100, raised the outright course record to 116.639mph on lap seven, however he was still unable to find a way past Todd into the lead.

He went even quicker on the final circuit to raise the mark to 116.941mph, but failed in his attempt to make it four championship wins on the bounce.

Todd set a new race record time of 19min 50.613sec, crossing the line 0.061 of a second ahead of Harrison.

Third-placed Michael Dunlop was more than 20s down on the leading pair at the close, with Jamie Coward fourth and leading local Nathan Harrison fifth.

Ryan Kneen also had a strong ride to finish sixth on the Charmer Builders BMW, with Marcus Simpson of Douglas also having an impressive ride to finish top-10 in his first solo championship race.

‘The team deserves this,’ said Todd at the close. ‘Dean pushed me all the way so I went for consistent laps and tried not to make any mistakes. I remained strong on the brakes into the tight corners.

‘I firmly believe that I have the best bikes, so a big thank you to Clive and all of the team.’

Full report in Tuesday’s Examiner.