Isle of Man TT winner Farquhar defeats Michael Dunlop in Grand Final showdown
Ryan Farquhar, a race winner at the 2012 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy, has continued his victorious ways with yet another haul of first places at the Skerries 100 road races.
The Dungannon racer, who took victory in the reintroduced BikersPetition.co.uk Lightweight TT, secured four wins from five starts at the weekend meeting.
The KMR Kawasaki rider won the Grand Final, Supersport 600cc, SuperTwin and Moto 450cc races to take his win tally this season to a stunning 30.
With heavy rain severely affecting conditions during Friday evening's practice sessions, race day dawned bright and sunny, although the adjacent fields and paddock remained extremely muddy.
Due to this, three-times TT winner Farquhar opted to just take out his 600cc machine for the opening Superbike race and, naturally down on power compared to the 1000cc machines, he finished in a somewhat unusual 5th.
However, from that moment on he was never beaten, with his first victory coming in the following Supersport 600cc race after a battle with Michael and William Dunlop.
The latter crashed out on lap five, so the result was taken at the end of the previous lap, Farquhar taking the win by 0.173s from Michael.
After an easy victory in the Moto 450cc race, Farquhar’s hat-trick was completed in the 7-lap SuperTwin race, where he was pushed hard by teammate Jamie Hamilton.
The pupil pressured the master hard in the early laps, but, aided by a new lap record, Farquhar slowly edged away and took the chequered flag more than 5 seconds clear.
That just left the Grand Final where Farquhar again went head-to-head with Michael Dunlop, the latter leading the way for much of the 8-lap race. However, Farquhar, who used his ZX-10R Superstock machine for the race, was just biding his time and made his move on the final lap to take his fourth win of the day, this time by 1.71s.
Hamilton's successful day continued when he took a fine 5th after earlier finishing 7th in the Superbike race.
Farquhar said:
“A few people were saying I had it easy at the Bush and Mid Antrim races with a lack of opposition so, with Michael and William being here today, I was really fired up and out to prove a point.”
“The weather on Friday left the whole paddock a bit of a mud bath so I decided to take the wee 600 out for the first Superbike race as I didn't want to mess the big bikes up with the Southern 100 so close.”
“I was never going to be in contention, but it was a good 5th and I followed this up with a win on the same bike in the Supersport race. William and Michael were with me the whole time, but I just kept my head down and it was a shame William crashed out as it was a great race.”
“The 450cc race was straightforward enough, but Jamie really kept me honest in the SuperTwin race and I had to work hard for that one - maybe I'm teaching him too much! I'd done a bit more work to the bikes and they were working so, so well.”
He added:
“That just left the Grand Final and with conditions drying up all the time in the paddock, I decided to take the Stocker out. It hadn't turned a wheel since the TT and was set up for the Mountain course, but a couple of warm up laps allowed me to get dialled in.”
“The bike was working well, the sun was shining and after sitting behind Michael for a few laps I waited until the last lap to make a move so that he didn't have time to come back at me - it worked a treat so to come away with four wins is brilliant.”
“A big thanks to Vauxhall for lending me a van and also to Millers Oils who I'm using this year. The gap between the Bush and Skerries allowed me to strip the bikes down and give everything a refresh and seeing how well all the components still looked is a testament to the quality of their product.”
“There's no let-up at the moment with the meetings coming thick and fast so I'm off to the Southern 100 now where I'll have the Superbike, Superstock and Supertwin machines to use. We're awaiting a few parts for the big bike but, hopefully, there'll arrive on Tuesday and we can give a good account of ourselves on the Island.”