Farquhar dominates at Cookstown The Ryan Farquhar steam roller showed no signs of slowing down at the weekend when the KMR Kawasaki rider dominated the racing at Saturday’s Cookstown 100 road races taking no less than 5 race wins. Hot on the heels of his eight wins at Oliver’s Mount, Farquhar won all five of the races he started around the 2.1-mile Orritor circuit, the first time anyone has won 5 Irish National road races in one day, including the feature Superbike race. Ryan opened his account with a hard fought win in the 125cc race where, riding his KX450F, he managed to get the better of William Dunlop on the final lap for his first win of the day. Next up was the Open race where, with a brilliant start, Ryan was never headed and with a lead of 8 seconds at half race distance, he was able to ease off in the closing stages for a comfortable victory. The Supersport 600cc race was another close encounter with Ryan and Michael Dunlop never more than half a second apart during the entire race but, when it mattered most, Ryan was in front and he duly completed his hat trick with another fine win. The 10-lap feature Cookstown 100 race was Ryan’s fourth race of the day and he led the field round at the end of the first lap although he was being pushed hard by Cameron Donald. The dicing duo left the field behind and with a new lap record Donald closed right on to the back wheel of Ryan but he wasn’t to be bettered and set an absolute lap record on lap 8 to edge away. With two perfect last laps, Ryan was able to control the race and he took a superb win from Donald by 1.1 seconds, creating some more history later when he won the Super Twins race for his fifth win of the day. To make it a perfect day for KMR Kawasaki, fellow team member Darren Hughes also won his two races to make it seven from seven for the team. Talking afterwards, a delighted Ryan said: “It’s been a fantastic day and a really good weekend for the whole team. In the 125cc race I was down on speed to William, as I knew I would be, but I rode the wheels off the bike and when he hesitated going by a backmarker I saw an opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. The wee bike is awesome and we’re already proving people wrong with what we can do – to get a road race win on what is essentially a motocross bike is awesome and these bikes could well be the future so I’d expect to see more and more of them on the grid in the years to come. “In the first Superbike race I got a great start and couldn’t quite believe the gap I pulled out – I thought they’d all pulled in or something – so just rode to my pit board but the feature race was a lot harder. Cameron was out on his Superbike and I could hear him behind me all the time but I just concentrated on being on the right line all the time and with the bike working superbly, I was able to set the absolute lap record and pull away from him. It’s a real testament to the Dunlop tyres too as I’ve used just one set for the practice and racing at both Scarborough and Cookstown – and there’s still some life in them! “Finally, there was the Super Twins race and I began by putting on a bit of a show for the crowd but I thought that might have ended in disaster so I got my head down again and rode hard until the end. With Darren winning also, we’ve taken 7 wins between us, which must be some kind of record too so with the success at Scarborough as well, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season. It would be nice to sweep the board at the North West and TT but that’s probably a bitt too much to ask! We’ll continue to work hard though and see what happens, you never know…!” Ryan now has a three-week break before the International North West 200, the meeting taking place from May 11-15. More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki News Service: After a 10-month hiatus through injury, Relentless by TAS Suzuki rider Cameron Donald made a successful return to road racing’s ‘Between the Hedges’ discipline earlier today at the Cookstown 100 in Ireland – dispelling any doubt that the Double-TT Winner would return to competitive racing. With a brace of second places on his Relentless Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the Superbike races, and a steady fourth-placed finish in the Supersport race on his GSX-R600; the Melbourne rider was more than happy with his first appearance back on the national scene in three years. Cameron Donald: “I’m very happy. Of course I never race to finish second, but we did say today was all about feeling our way back in and progressing with the Superbike; we have achieved both of those goals so I’m going home a happy man. The difference between national road racing and the international stuff is like chalk and cheese – it really shocked me in that first race. “I have never been ultra-successful here at Cookstown with its stop-start nature, preferring the fast and flowing circuits, but I did take Ryan Farquhar all the way in that last Superbike race. He’s the man on form and I won’t take that away from him, but I sat back and watched for a few laps and did think I had the measure of him. Unfortunately I made a small mistake coming onto the last lap and those 50 yards made the difference between winning and finishing second. “In the 600cc race I got caught up in a bit of ‘riff-raff’ which made me laugh a bit as there were some whacky moves being pulled on me. It was a good spin-out and fourth place at the end wasn’t so bad. It’s been a good day.” Philip Neill – Team Manager: “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I’m glad it’s over. I wasn’t fully confident it was the correct decision to race at Cookstown, especially being a last minute decision while the boys were in the middle of building bikes for the NW200 and TT, but it worked out fine. Cameron really got his head dialled back into racing here today and it was very pleasing to see how comfortable he looked on the bike. “Fair play to Ryan Farquhar; he’s a tough man to beat on the national scene but Cameron is more than happy with his return and we leant a lot more about our GSX-R1000 Superbike over the weekend. We also made positive progress with the very latest Pirelli tyres that we will be running at the TT and Cameron got a chance to try out the very latest range of KBC helmets that he will be wearing this season.”