West Country racer Martin Jessopp is eyeing a possible 212mph top speed at this year's North West 200 if conditions are right for his BMW S1000RR on the Golden Triangle.

Jessopp, who blew through the speed trap at 208mph last year on the Riders Ducati, says that a good slipstream could see him push on to 210mph or even 212mph this year.

"I broke the top speed barrier in practice last year. I was out on my own with no-one to slipstream and I hit 206mph on the first lap," said Jessopp.

"It didn’t even get reported back to the pits because the guys with the speed gun thought that it couldn’t be working properly to record that speed so soon. I did the 208mph on the third lap.

"My mechanics were really excited about it when I pulled into the pits but I was more concerned about getting the bike properly set-up for the race."

Jessopp revealed that he had been struggling with ‘some handling issues’ during those runs down through the Coleraine Road speed trap on the Riders’ Ducati. But he admitted that it felt ‘very quick’.

"When you are doing 180mph on a wide track like Silverstone it doesn’t really feel that fast but at the North West the road is so much narrower and everything is going past so quickly," he explained.

"It is so bumpy and there is even a jump along the fastest stretch! It is like you are going down a tunnel and the white lines and hedges become a blur. University Corner appears like a tiny little dot in the distance and then all of a sudden you are there, pulling on the brakes like mad to get stopped and get around it."