This weekend the quiet County Tyrone countryside around Orritor will reverberate to the sound of high-powered motorcycles when the KDM Hire Cookstown 100 opens the 2015 Irish National Road Race championships.
Entries have been flooding in for one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the season with over £10,000 prize money on offer across 17 races, £1000 of which is earmarked for the feature-race Cookstown 100 winner.
The ‘mini-international’ event will see Tyco BMW make their eagerly awaited road race debut with Guy Martin and William Dunlop.
Michael Dunlop will head the opposition on his MD Racing machinery with the possibility of a run out on his new Milwaukee Yamaha, while Mar-Train Yamaha line up with Dean Harrison in the saddle.
“I’ve been doing some laps in the car this week and fair play to the organisers the circuit is looking absolutely mint so I can’t wait to get out in practice on Friday afternoon. I've only ridden the circuit once, in 2013, but I enjoyed it and seemed to go okay so we’ll just take it as it comes and hopefully put on a good show,” said Harrison.
Derek McGee debuts for Wilson Craig Honda, Michael Sweeney will be on board the Track Blast machines and last year’s event double winner Derek Sheils has switched to the new BikeBits NI Kawasaki team for what should be two days of thrilling action around the short 2.1mile circuit.
The new Joey’s Bar team under the guidance of Gary Dunlop will make their local road race debut at Cookstown, with Sam Wilson in the saddle.
Hungarian Sandor Bitter, who will be making his second appearance at the Tyrone event, this time riding a BMW for Stephen Thompson’s T&R Motorsport Team, provides the international flavour.
A week later the action moves to the Tandragee 100 where Ryan Farquhar, 12 times a winner around the daunting 5.3mile County Armagh circuit once described by multi TT winner John McGuinness as a ‘micro TT’, returns to big bike action.
