Cookstown 100 - April 2005

This was the start of my main season’s racing…The National Irish Road Race Championships.

After East Fortune, the bikes were ready for the roads and we headed off to Cookstown.

I went over to Lisburn on the Thursday and Billy and I finished off putting the sponsor stickers on the bikes, then loaded up and headed off.

We managed to get into the main paddock beside the start finish and with a good vantage point for the racing, and set the garage up, ready with the bikes.

Scrutineering took place just after lunchtime and there was a big queue, as the event was really busy.

In the afternoon there was a newcomers bus (for people who haven’t raced at this particular circuit before). Cookstown is 2.1 mile long (quite short for a road circuit) and it uses 4 roads to form the circuit. The roads are so narrow, a maximum of 7 bikes can be set off at one time, for safety reasons. The newcomers bus is accompanied by an experienced rider who explains the basics of the particular circuit; such things as jumps bad cambers, poor grip areas etc.

The first session is practice for newcomers only and gives them a little idea of where the circuit goes (using both sides of the road).

Main qualifying begins after the newcomers sessions and placement on the grid for the race is determined by qualifying time in this.

I was out on the 400 first and was still finding my way round. I had some gear selection problems which were holding me back a little, but felt things were going well anyway and I qualified in 9th, out of about 60.

In the 600 practice I had learned the circuit a little better and began to put in some good laps. We had made a couple of suspension adjustments after the newcomers practice and these seemed to stabilise the bike over the jumps and the table top.

I was having a good time and ended up qualifying in 5th. This was amazing as I was new to the circuit and was up against 750’s. So we finished the day on a high.

Race Day

In the morning it was really nice and sunny, but we knew the forecast was bad.

The 400 race was run in dry conditions and I got a good start (Billy had tweaked the clutch, which helped me get off the line). I wasn’t higher than 3rd gear however, when about 4 250’s passed me and I thought, ”this is going to take effort to get them back”. I had passed some of them in practice.

It seemed that the gears were becoming more and more difficult to select and I began losing time and so struggled to make up ground. I had a great time cornering and braking though and still managed to pass bikes, but the gear selection problem did'nt let me catch any of the 250’s up.

I finished in 10th and under the circumstances was very happy, as I must have been losing 5 seconds each lap due to gears.

As the 750 support race was called it began to drizzle, then it was declared a wet race, but there was no time to change wheels and I went out for the warmup with dry tyres on.

The roads looked treacherous in the damp conditions and they claimed a lot of victims that day.

I decided to carry on with the race, in the worsening conditions however and the roads became wet, with standing water at some points. So I chose the safe option and kept the head, bringing the bike home in a safe 14th position. Not bad anyway for my first wet road race (on dry tyres).

As the day went on the weather swung from wet to dry and made tyre choice for the other races very difficult.

There was some really good racing and I got to see a lot of it as my races were over relatively early. So it was a really good day and just made me wish that the next weekend at Tandragee would come around quicker.

On Sunday before I went home, we drove round the Tandragee circuit, which is one of the longest at 5.5miles (8.5Km). It is often referred to as a mini TT and I could see why, with the jumps and technical sections, with many surface changes.