Ryan Farquhar enjoyed another superb day of racing on Saturday with the KMR Kawasaki rider taking a hat-trick of race wins at the Tandragee 100 road races. The Dungannon ace took the Open, Supertwins and Moto 450 races and backed this up with two extremely hard fought runner-up spots behind Michael Dunlop in the Supersport and feature Superbike events.
The Open race was first up for Ryan and with a good start, he led Michael Dunlop by 0.6s at the end of the first lap. The duo soon began to pull away from the rest of the field and as the race entered it's second half, Ryan began to edge away from Dunlop too. Sure enough, he was able to open up a significant gap and he eventually took the chequered flag 3.25s clear of his younger rival for his first win of the day.
The same pairing then went head to head in the Supersport 600cc race but this time it was even closer with the lead changing hands on a number of occasions. This time though it was Dunlop who prevailed and he just held off Ryan, the gap between the duo at the end of the 5 laps just 0.096 seconds! However, Ryan didn't have to wait long for his second win of the day with a start to finish victory coming in the Moto 450 race.
It was a similar story in the Supertwins race where he ran out a convincing winner by a whopping 15.4s to complete his hat-trick and that just left the main event of the day, the Tandragee 100 Superbike race. In what was without doubt the race of the day, Ryan and Michael gave the fans a race to remember as they embarked on a furious battle that went the entire race distance. There was nothing to choose between them with both taking turns in the lead but, on the final lap, Michael grabbed the lead and he held on in the run in to the flag to edge Ryan out by just 0.9s.
Team-mate Jamie Hamilton had a bit of a mixed day around the 5.5-mile venue, retiring from the first Superbike race with a broken radiator as he fell victim to all the stones that were being kicked up from the recently resurfaced circuit. However, despite the distinct lack of track time, he did take an excellent third place in the Supertwins race for another podium finish.
Speaking later, a happy Ryan commented; "It's been another great day albeit a tough one both with the hard, competitive races and with the circuit not being in the best of shape. The recent resurfacing meant there were still a lot of stones lying around and unless you were out front, you were going to receive the worst of them. Fortunately, I managed to make good starts in all the races and in the first Superbike race I was able to keep Michael at bay and edge away in the closing stages for a good win. Jamie's radiator got punctured though and that meant his day on the big bike was sadly over."
"The Moto 450 and Supertwins races gave me two comfortable wins but the other two races were anything but and it was really close between Michael and myself. He was riding really well and it was good, clean racing so I thoroughly enjoyed myself out there and can't be unhappy with two close seconds. There was nothing between us in either race but he just managed to edge by along the final straight on the last lap but I'm happy enough especially with the performance of the Superstock bike. I'm really looking forward to the NW200 and TT races on it as it's handling really, really well so we're looking in good shape."
"Jamie was a bit disappointed having to retire from the big bike races but 3rd in the Supertwins race was a great effort given his lack of track time and Tandragee's not the easiest place to learn so to finish on the podium again was superb. I'm really looking forward to the North West now and although I've a bit of work to do with the Superbike and a couple of Supertwin engines, we're looking good. That's 14 wins now for myself this season and 17 in total for the team so let's hope this good run continues!"
