This year, with th🃏e schedule increased to 10 races, he is aiming to start every one to break his 👍own record of eight races from 2022.

His entry into both solo and sidecar races will give him a unique opportunity - he has raced three times at this ye൲ar’s event already, and plans to enter the next seven too.

"2020 was going to be the first attempt at doing all the races but Covid scuppered that,"ꦛ Russell told the .

"You are only permitted to 🔥do so many laps in the day but the ACU [the event organisers] looked at it and said we could do it, the schedule they had laid out🉐 for the event allowed for it.

"We managed to put♕ together a full stable of bikes and I started all eight races last year, finishing seven of them.

"It was very physically and mentally demanding💟 and I was running on adrenaline by the end of the week.

"Unfortunately, a minor technical issue, a bolt, thwarted me f🍬inishing the Senior and I was quite emotional about it, I felt really deflated.

"I was in tears when my machin💯e broke down but I regrouped, came back to the paddock and me and my team had some champagne.

"The TT is the tou🍸ghest challenge on man and machine so I'm under 🌜no illusions how difficult it is to finish any given race."

Part of the allure of Russell’s record-seeking is that competes in both solo and sidecar🌠 categories.

“Jumping ꦬfrom smaller bikes to big bikes is difficult✱,” he said.

“T꧅hey are very different in terms o🥃f how you sit, how you react, and the braking markers vary so much.

"Vicky Cooke🌠 is my sidecar passenger this year, she is behind me so she is my responsibi🎶lity, and that is something I take very seriously.

"Riding a solo you have that suspension but the battering you take in a sidecar is ridiculous. It requires a different mentali🌊ty."

Russell is 42, an RAF serviceman. Gordon Blackley, a fellow serviceman and a TT riderಌ, enticed him to compete on the Mountain Course for the first time.

Russell won the Senior Manx Grand Prix i♊n 2009, started racing at the TT in 2010, and started in sidecars in 2018.

"I know it's a dangerous event but that's part of the thrill ✤of it,” he said. “We're doing something that not everyone can do.

"The 🌠aim is to start every race but it's also to finish them all too."