TT winner Donald 'happy' with return to road race scene
Double Isle of Man TT winner Cameron Donald has admitted he was ‘really shocked’ by his return to the Irish National road race scene for the first time in three years.
As he continues is preparations for the 2010 TT, the Australian put any doubts the shoulder injury he suffered during practice for last year’s TT was still troubling him, challenging Ryan Farquhar for superbike honours during Saturday’s Cookstown 100.
However, the Relentless by TAS Suzuki star said he had been shocked by the difference between the national and international road races.
A late entry for the event, Donald took his GSX-R1000 to second on both Superbike races and took a steady fourth place on his GSX-R600.
He said:
“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’d 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.”
Donald added:
“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.”
TAS Team Manager Philip Neill said:
“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.”