Tyco Suzuki's Alastair Seeley has taken his third victory of the 2012 North West 200 festival, bagging the blue riband second Superbike race ahead of veterans Michael Rutter and JOhn McGuinness with Simon Andrews coming through the second wave to take fourth on corrected time.
Seeley won the second Supersport race just ahead of the feature North West and both of today's wins add to the first Superstock win in the wet on Thursday night. The result ensured Seeley took home the Man of the Meeting award with a superb return of three wins and three seconds from his six races.
"After all the second places today, I was wondering if I was going to get a win but I managed that in the preceding Supersport race and then managed it again in this one," said a delighted Seeley. "I got to the front as quick as I could and rode my own lines, concentrating on hitting all my braking markers but after three laps they were still with me so I thought it might come down to the last lap again. I kept trying and my pitboard crept up to +2 so I kept it there until the end to seal the hat-trick and three wins and three seconds, it's been a great meeting for me."
It was McGuinness who grabbed the holeshot on the run down to York Corner with Seeley slotting into second just ahead of Rutter and Ian Hutchinson but the Tyco Suzuki man hit the front on the run to University and he would never be headed again. However, some of the sting was taken out of the race when the leading pack approached the Mather's Cross chicane four abreast and with no room for all the riders to funnel through, Conor Cummins, Gary Johnson and Martin Jessopp all tipped off at low speed. The incident split the pack with both Bruce Anstey and Cameron Donald both losing a lot of time, the latter eventually retiring on lap 3.
There was little between the front three though and at half race distance, there was only two seconds between the leading three riders and the man making the biggest move up the leaderboard was Simon Andrews who, starting from the front row of the second wave, was up to fourth on corrected time. Seeley began to edge away on lap four and his lead crept up to 1.3s over McGuinness who was now coming under extreme pressure from Rutter. Indeed, the pressure paid off and the Kawasaki rider moved up to second on lap five.
By then, Seeley's lead was close to three seconds and although he encountered some backmarkers on the final lap he was able to bring the bike home for another NW200 race win with the rapid veterans of Rutter and McGuinness filling the two remaining podium spots. Andrews held onto fourth throughout for an excellent result whilst Michael Dunlop had a lonely ride into fifth. James Hillier held off Ian Hutchinson for sixth with Anstey recovering for eighth and Stephen Thompson and Brian McCormack completing the top ten.
In a race of attrition, Ryan Farquhar, Ian Lougher, Dan Kneen, Lee Johnston, Denver Robb, Michael Sweeney and Davy Morgan were all amongst the list of retirements.
