Keith Amor made a winning start to the 2009 Irish road race season on Saturday, when he took a record breaking victory in the Supersport 600cc race at the Cookstown 100. The Wilson Craig Honda also set a new outright lap record in the feature Superbike race although the win escaped him as he fell on the penultimate lap, fortunately without injury.
With Friday's practice held in difficult, damp conditions, Amor found himself down in 9th place on the grid for the Supersport race and had start from the second wave of riders. However, it proved to be no handicap for the Falkirk ace and he was soon leading the race on corrected time. With a new lap record of 88.791mph, he extended his lead and he was able to take a comfortable win by 2.819 seconds.
In the two Open races, Amor endured a mixed day with gear lever problems affecting him on both occasions. Leading the field in the first race, Amor was unable to change down the gears on the approach to one of the road ends and he was forced to take a trip down the slip road. He soon rejoined and whilst he again broke the circuit lap record, he had to settle for third behind Ryan Farquhar and Conor Cummins, with just 1.031 seconds separating the trio at the chequered flag.
In the feature Cookstown 100 Open race, Amor again grabbed the holeshot but Farquhar was on his tail with little to choose between the two. The outright lap record was smashed by both riders but on the penultimate lap it all went wrong for Amor when the gear lever worked loose and he crashed out of the lead. He escaped injury and did have the consolation of claiming the outright circuit lap record with a speed of 90.671mph.
"It's been a mixed day, results wise, but I'm feeling extremely positive and am happy enough with how the day went, how the bikes were performing and how I rode. With a lot of traffic in qualifying I was down in the second wave for the 600cc race but I got my head down and had caught the first wave by the end of the first lap," said the Scotsman.
"I pushed hard, took the lap record and once I could see the leaders, I knew I'd got the win. It was a bit more tricky on the Superstock bike in the Open races and, for some reason, the gear lever was catching on the frame and I was struggling to change down the gears hence overshooting in the first race."
"We spaced it out for the second big bike race but it was grounding out on the corners and towards the end of the race, I went in to one corner and had no gears. I braked as much as I could but ended up going down and it turned out the gear lever had worked its way loose. We'd created a problem by fixing a problem but, aside from that, the bikes worked perfectly and the grip I was getting from the Dunlop tyres was awesome.
The team worked really hard all weekend and did a great job so big thanks to them as well. We're picking up the Superbike and the new 600 on Tuesday and hope to have them all ready to race at Tandragee so that should put us in even better shape."
Amor's next race will be at the Tandragee 100 road races, which take place on Saturday May 2nd.
