James Chawke took the honours in Tuesday lunchtime’s delayed Mylchreets Junior Manx Grand Prix.

Overnight rain meant that the four-lap race started two hours later than scheduled at 12.15pm.

The delay didn’t slacken the contest’s early pace, Matt Stevenson taking to the top of the corrected time charts with an opening lap just shy of the magical 120mph mark.

Stevenson had built up a comfortable 18-second lead before he came off uninjured at the Creg-ny-Baa on the second lap, later admitting he had been trying a bit too hard.

At that point Irishman Chawke inherited the lead from Dean Osborne and the chasing pack of Stephen Parsons, Darryl Tweed, Dave Butler, Wayne Humble and Brad Vicars who were enjoying a battle royal for the top six places.

Douglas man Osborne proved to be Chawke’s nearest challenger on his Kawasaki ZX-6R and a flying last lap saw him finish only 4.4 seconds down on his fellow Kawasaki man.

Tweed held third spot going into the final lap, but his Triumph Daytona ran out of fuel midway round to dash his hopes of a spot in the winner’s enclosure.

This elevated Parsons into third at the finish as he came home 10.5 seconds down on Osborne but nearly 21s ahead of Vicars.

Humble and Stephen Smith rounded out the top six.

Chawkes, who has been mentored by Santon man Carl Roberts, revealed he had broken a bracket on his exhausts on the final pass through Ramsey and was relieved to finish: ’This is unreal, a dream. I can’t thank everyone who has supported me enough.’

Full report in Thursday’s Manx Independent.