Ryan Farquhar's race-winning spree continued at the weekend when the KMR Kawasaki rider retained his Cock o' the North title at Oliver's Mount, Scarborough. With perfect conditions around the seaside venue, Ryan was again in fine form and ended the weekend with five more race wins under his belt whilst team-mate Jamie Hamilton was again amongst the top four.
Saturday's racing started with a 600cc heat, which Ryan won by almost ten seconds from Ivan Lintin and that was followed by the opening leg of the Superbikes. It was fellow Northern Irishman Michael Pearson who grabbed the holeshot and although his lead was never more than a second, Ryan simply couldn't find a way through. The gap was constantly coming down but it ended in a rare defeat around the woodland venue for Ryan as he crossed the line 0.256s behind Pearson, the fastest lap of the race his only consolation. Hamilton took a good fourth and the duo then took another 1-2 for the team in the Supertwins, Ryan coming out on top on this occasion by a comfortable 6.5s, also claiming a new lap record at 78.262mph.
With glorious conditions again greeting the riders on Sunday, Ryan opened his account for the day with a good victory in the second leg of the Superbikes, his winning margin over Dean Harrison 5.8s, but Hamilton suffered a spill when he highsided out of the race. Ryan then completed his hat-trick with a 3 second victory over Pearson in the first Supersport 600cc race although, after a number of delays to the race schedule, he opted out of the second leg held later in the afternoon. His next outing was the second leg of the Supertwins which he won from Daniel Frear but Hamilton was again out of luck retiring when the bike started to jump out of gear. Ryan's weekend ended on the best possible note though when he overhauled Pearson and Harrison to take the 10-lap feature Cock o' the North race, to add his name to the Trophy for the third successive year.
Speakin later, a delighted Ryan said; "All in all, it's been a good weekend and it was a good opportunity for me to get some work in on the Superbike and try to get it dialled in a bit more. It's such a sensitive bike that a small change can make a huge difference so I spent most of Saturday making constant changes and I've got a bike that now feels like my bike. I definitely made some good progress and got more and more feel as the weekend wore on with the lap times subsequently coming down. The laptop crashed on me on Sunday so I couldn't make as many changes as I would have liked but it's not far away now so we'll keep working on it at Armoy and get it as close to perfect as possible."
"There were a few red flags over the two days so it led to a hectic schedule and that's why I opted out of the second Supersport race as otherwise I'd have had four races on the trot. I wanted to save myself for the big bike race and it paid off. I outbraked myself at Mere on the first lap but just bided my time before making a move on both Dean and Michael. Jamie was going well again and was inside the Supertwins lap record too whilst what I learnt with the Superbike we could transfer to his Superstock machine and he was immediately happier with it. He had a bit of bad luck on Sunday with a highside, a bike that jumped out of gear and another one that had brake fade so didn't get the results he'd hoped for but, overall, he was happy. It's been a good weekend for KMR Kawasaki and we'll look for more of the same when we come back here in September for the Gold Cup. Sadly, the meeting ended on a sad note with the loss of a rider in the final race of the day so from everyone connected with the team, we'd like to pass on our thoughts and sympathy to all his friends and family."
