Duke 2009 Road Race Rankings

In bright, sunny and at times breezy conditions, the long awaited ‘racing between the hedges’ season finally got underway in Northern Ireland with the traditional opening event of the year, the Cookstown ‘100’, blowing the winter cobwebs away, as no less than five lap records fell during an actioned packed programme of no less than 18 races!

Ryan Farquhar created history with his first ever hat-trick at the Orritor course, which included victory in the feature race of the meeting, the Cookstown 100 Race.
Riding at his ‘local’ event, the Dungannon ace continued his winning ways from the previous week at Oliver’s Mount opened his account taking the chequered flag in the Open (Superbike) Race, the opening race of the Irish National Road Race

Championship 2009, with his final victory of the day coming in the newly introduced 650cc Super Twins Race. He also took runner-up spot in the Supersport 600cc race.
Throughout the day Farquhar repeated his battles of 2008 with Keith Amor, who took the Supersport victory, setting a new lap record in the process, one of three credited to Scot’s ace during the day. Ryan Farquhar’s rich vein of success over the two opening rounds of the Duke Road Race Rankings.

Series 2009, it is no surprise that he now heads the table with a 149 points lead over Scunthorpe’s Daniel Frear, who headed the rankings after the Ian Watson Spring Cup, ‘Manxie’ Chris Palmer drops to third spot.

A brace of top-ten placing’s keeps Michael Pearson in fourth position, whilst William Dunlop moves from 14th to 6th, with brother Michael entering the table in seventh, having been forced to miss Oliver’s Mount due to his Norton TT publicity commitments.

Keith Amor slots into eighth place, as Ian Lougher drops down a position, with another Manxman, Conor Cummins filling tenth place.

Rd. Round 2
1 Ryan Farquhar 335
2 Daniel Frear 186
3 Chris Palmer  166
4 Michael Pearson  157
5 Kiaran Hankin 142
6 William Dunlop  132
7 Michael Dunlop  123
8 Keith Amor 94
9 Ian Lougher 85
10 Conor Cummins 78
11 David Bell 75
12 Guy Martin 75
13 Gary Jamison 70
14 Phil Harvey 64
15 Richard Gibson 60
16 Olie Linsdell 60
17 Lee Vernon 54
18 Adrian Archibald 52
19 William Davison 52
20 Andrew Neill 52
21 John Burrows 50
22 Ian Pattinson 48
23 John Walsh 48
24 Bob Farrington 46
25 Alan Bud Jackson 46
26 Mark McGaw 45
27 Geoff McMullan 45
28 Dave Hewson 44
29 Damien Mulleady 42
30 Paul Hedison 40
31 Steve Linsdell 40
32 Mike Minns 40
33 Peter Wakefield 40
34 Tony Flinton 38
35 Ciaran Donnelly 37
36 Gareth Costello 36
37 Barry Davidson 36
38 Ciaran O’Callaghan 36
39 Mark Young 36
40 Neill McWhirter 35
41 Benny Smith35
42 Darren Burns 34
43 Billy Lyle 32
44 Craig Shirlaw 22 32
45 Richard Ford 30
46 Denis Gallagher 30
47 Mick Goodings 30
48 Richard McCartney 30
49 Mark Shiels 30
50 Ross Johnson 28

After two rounds a total of 114 riders have now scored rankings points, with 24 new entries appearing after round two.

The third round, is the 50th anniversary Tandragee ‘100’ National Road Races on Saturday 2nd May, followed by the first International event of the year, the North West ‘200’ on May 16th.