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Cookstown 100 | NEWS, VIEWS AND GOSSIP FROM THE IRISH PADDOCKS

Today is the opening road race in the 2008 calendar, the Cookstown 100, heading the bill for the race held on the “Orritor track” is Dungannon’s Ryan Farquahar who is hoping to continue his winning way’s from last weekend’s Ian Watson Cup races at Scarborough. Along with Farquhar on the bill is Adrian Archibald who will be hoping to get a win to start his 2008 season, whilst Gary Johnston from Lincoln is making his first road race appearance in 2008 with his new team run by ex rider Uel Duncan.

Also appearing at Cookstown will be Wayne Hamilton, 17 from Portadown, who will be making his Irish road racing debut, having only competed in one previous road race, at Oliver’s Mount, were he took 2nd place in the 125 race on his H&T Transport machine, whilst his team mate, Lurgan’s Dwyer Agnew was 4th in the 250 race.

It was an excellent day for most of the Irish at Thruxton last Sunday, with John Laverty heading the pack in the Superbike Cup to take a double victory on board his North West 200 / Buildbase Ducati. His elder brother Michael also grabbed a bagful of points in the main Championship taking 10th in race one and fifth in race two on his Relentless TAS Suzuki. However Laverty’s Relentless team mate, Ian Lowry just missed out on the podium placings in the Supersport race, eventually finishing in fifth, the final of the TAS boys, made it a day to celebrate for Philip and Hector Neill, when Australian man Cameron Donald took third place in the Superstock 1000cc race.
Portadown’s Marshall Neill upheld the Irish standards and took fourth place behind Donald, with Alastair Seeley seventh and Gary Johnston riding for the Irish based Uel Duncan team in eighth. Antrim man Adrian Coates was out of luck in the Superstock’s , firstly getting a jump start penalty and eventually being black flagged for not coming into the pits for his ride through penalty, however he had better luck in the Henderson R1 Cup race where he and Castlerock’s Marty Nutt, had a real close fought battle for third place, although it was Nutt who got the better of Coates getting onto the bottom step of the podium, Coates still finished in an excellent fifth place after being passed by Gary Mason in the dying stages of the race. The unrelated Kennedy’s Jack and Robert were also in action in the R1 Cup, finishing seventh and fourteenth and both scoring points.

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Magherafelt’s Paul Jordan was the Irish man with the biggest smile on Sunday night though when he took his maiden victory in the Relentless 125GP race after Dean Brown, the early race leader came to grief. Jordan riding for the KPR team took both the race win and the ACU Academy Cup win, whilst Stuart Elwood notched up his first points in 13th place overall and fifth place in the Cup. Omagh school girl Nicole McAleer was also delighted to take 22nd overall and 10th in the Cup race, despite having a nightmare with tyre problems during qualifying. Irish eyes were also smiling for Ballyclare’s Jamie Hamilton when he was third placed in the shortened Superstock 600cc race, where Lisburn’s Davy Haire was fifth and Maguiresbridge’s Lee Johnston was seventh. Nikki Coates just made it into the points in 15th place with Eddie Haddick making his British Championship debut race in 36th.

At Saturday’s Irish Clubman’s Championship there was full grids in all races and it was Gareth Keys and Brian Patterson who were the happiest men on the day when they took the double wins in the 600cc and 1010cc races respectively. Scott Thompson and Sean Smith shared the spoils in the Pre 97 race, were alongside many other debut races Stevie Heron from Newtownards finish his first ever races, having only taken up racing this year, despite being on the wrong side on 21 plus VAT!!! Well Done Stevie and all the other newcomers. Robert English and Richard Glasgow (yes relative of Alan and Mark) shared the wins in the Aprillia RS125 & Newcomers 125 race.

Finally as the road racing scene kicks starts today with the Cookstown 100, the Tandragee Club are looking further ahead to next weekend when they hold their event, which is sponsored by Dazlell’s of Markethill and will be hoping to have some excellent racing with an entry 178 riders, of whom 35 are from the UK, 47 from the South of Ireland and 96 Ulster Centre Riders. There are 37 newcomers included in those figures.

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