THIS season's Enkalon Trophy Rider of the Year award would seem to be a foregone conclusion - even before it takes place with the name Dunlop looking odds-on to be engraved again on the famous Joey Dunlop Trophy.
One man stands head and shoulders above the rest in 2013, and that is 24-year-old Michael Dunlop from Ballymoney, who will be crowned Enkalon rider for 2013.
In fact, Dunlop will be the main runner in most awards this year, and not even the exploits of our Eugene Laverty and Jonny Rea, both of whom have excelled themselves in 2013, will beat the season that young Michael Dunlop has had.
It was clear from the start of the season that Michael Dunlop was going to be a force, but not many would have thought Michael could have produced the results he managed.
His early association link-up with the TT Legends Honda Team for 2013 was the first indicator that Dunlop was going to produce a result like he had never before produced, but the no-nonsense competitor was out to prove that given the right machinery such as Honda, he would produce the results... and he did.
Dunlop started it all off with wins at Cookstown and Tandragee just to warm up for the North West 200 in May, but not before the rains put a halt to the meeting on Saturday. Dunlop went out on the Thursday and notched up a win to start proceedings. Next stop was the Isle of Man TT and Dunlop did the business.
A pre-race favourite for the Supersport 600 class was good enough, but no-one even dared to think he would beat his team-mate John McGuinness in the TT Superbike Race. Young Dunlop did just that, and produced a four-timer with wins in the Superbike, Supersport and Superstock races.
Dunlop could have won the senior TT Race on the Friday, but this time it was McGuinness who collected his 19th TT win with Michael coming home in second place.
National road race wins back home in Ireland followed for Michael before he notched up another Superstock race win at the Ulster Grand Prix, where he admitted he had to play second fiddle to Tyco Suzuki rider Guy Martin.
But that win at Dundrod that day meant that Michael Dunlop was the only rider to score wins at all three international road races in 2013.
Michael Dunlop was simply in a class of his own in 2013, and with a possible move away to Yamaha in 2014, that trend will continue and Dunlop will again be the champion road racer around.