Kawasaki's Alastair Seeley remained top of the Vauxhall NorthWest 200 Superstock timesheets with his lap from Tuesday as conditions remained far from ideal at the North West 200 this morning for the second Superstock qualifying session with big black clouds continuing to deposit light rain around the 8.9-mile circuit.
he 50-minute session got underway just after 11.30 with Guy Martin on the Tyco Suzuki the first to complete a lap at 106.421, some 12mph down on Tuesday afternoon's fastest lap.
He was upstaged by both William Dunlop (107.995) and Gary Johnson (106.719) the latter having his first outing of the year, whilst Simon Andrews (105.935), Bruce Anstey (104.729) and John McGuinness (104.719) were the riders in the remaining top six positions. However, whilst the rain eased at the start and finish, it was continuing to fall around the course with a number of riders pulling in at the end of their second lap to see if conditions improved.
The rain eased towards the end of the session with Johnson (107.337), Martin (107.922), Alastair Seeley (106.652) and Dean Harrison (105.810) all going slightly quicker. Meanwhile, Josh Brookes posted the 14th fastest lap at 103.052.
Although their times were slower than Tuesday, Martin, Cummins and William Dunlop were all able to complete the necessary amount of laps to qualify for the two six-lap races although the trio will only occupy the fifth and sixth rows.
Top ten overall:
1 Alastair Seeley 118.046
2 Michael Dunlop 117.237
3 John McGuinness 117.189
4 Bruce Anstey 116.747
5 Gary Johnson 116.674
6 Michael Rutter 116.201
7 Cameron Donald 116.109
8 Dean Harrison 116.048
9 James Hillier 115.230
10 Horst Saiger 115.214