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2018 North West 200: Superstock win for Seeley

Alastair Seeley won a sensational Superstock race at the North West 200 on Saturday afternoon, coming out on top of a thrilling six-rider battle, the 24th win for the Carrickfergus man.

The Tyco BMW rider grabbed the lead from Peter Hickman (Smiths Racing BMW) at the final Juniper Chicane on the final lap, a reverse of Thursday evening’s race, to win by 0.186s with Dean Harrison (Silicone Engineering Kawasaki) taking a close third to prevent total BMW domination.

It was Michael Rutter (Bathams Racing BMW) who got the jump off the line but by the end of the lap it was Dan Kneen on a second BMW that led with Seeley, Rutter, Michael Dunlop (MD Racing BMW) and Hickman in hot pursuit as just three seconds covered the top ten.

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Second time around, the leading seven riders broke away and although he led briefly, Hickman ran wide at Metropole and the order by the time they’d reached the start and finish once more, the order was Seeley, Rutter, Hickman, Kneen, Dunlop, Harrison and James Hillier. The latter dropped back with Gary Johnson taking his place in the leading pack.

Hickman lapped at 121.565mph on the third lap to move into second behind Seeley as Kneen, Rutter, Harrison, Dunlop, Johnson and Martin Jessopp made it an eight-rider fight, now just 2.7s covering them.

Lap four saw the first major change as Rutter overshot the Juniper Chicane and the leading six riders made a break with Hickman lapping quicker still at 122.037mph, the fastest lap of the race, to take over in the lead. Seeley, Harrison, Kneen, Dunlop and Johnson were right with him though as they went three abreast on the high speed run to University.

Going into the final lap, any one of the top six were in with a chance of a win but Kneen made a mistake at Mathers, leaving his brakes too late and running onto the grass subsequently picking up a ten-second penalty. 

Harrison had led into University but at Metropole, Hickman dived up the inside as he looked to repeat Thursday’s win only this time Seeley went with him and he left his brakes as late as possible going into Juniper. He just avoided running onto the kerbs and duly took the race win with Hickman and Harrison completing the podium.

Dunlop and Johnson took fourth and fifth with Kneen’s penalty dropping him back to sixth whilst Jessopp, Hillier, Conor Cummins and Dan Cooper rounded out the top ten. Rutter ended up 13th.

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