Ryan Farquhar kicked off the 2008 Irish road racing season off in real style on Saturday at the Cookstown 100. The McAdoo Kawasaki Racing star dominated the event, winning both Superbike races and the overall ‘Man of the Meeting’ award.

In warm, sunny conditions, Ryan’s opening win came in Superbike race one. The McAdoo Kawasaki team’s 2008 ZX-10R Superbike wasn’t quite ready for action so Farquhar raced the ‘07 Superbike and it proved well capable of success, winning the 10 lap race from Martin Finnegan and Scotland’s Keith Amor.

Next up came the Supersport 600cc race and Ryan started from pole position. However, he made a bad start and leader Keith Amor pulled out a gap on lap one. Ryan got his head down and smashed the lap record on the MSS tuned McAdoo Kawasaki ZX-6R on lap three. The race was an absolute cracker, with the lap record changing hands on a number of occasions. Ryan just wasn’t able to close the gap on Amor who had a bit more practice on his 600 having raced it earlier in the day, and settled for a respectable second place.

The final race was the main event, the Cookstown 100 Superbike race. Again, Farquhar and the McAdoo Kawasaki ZX-10R did the business, winning from Finnegan and Amor, thus clinching the overall ‘Man of the Meeting’ award.

It was a terrific start to the 2008 season for the team, particularly with the new 2008 Race Techniques tuned ZX-10R Superbike still to come. Ryan was also delighted with the Dunlop tyres he’ll race with in 2008, describing them as ‘perfect’.

So overall, the meeting couldn’t have gone much better for the team, which is based on the circuit itself, and backed by local fuel station company, ‘Go Forecourt’. On now to the Tandragee 100 at the weekend and hopefully more of the same!

TV COVERAGE
BBC NI will show highlights of the Cookstown 100 on Sunday 4th May at approximately 10.15pm. BBC NI is available on Sky Digital and also at http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/nw200/