Antrim rider Nikki Coates is the new Irish Superbike champion after Saturday’s action-packed meeting at the St Angleo Raceway in Enniskillen.
Coates failed to record a win at the meeting but still accumulated enough points from the two races to secure his first Irish Superbike title.
Dublin’s Cody Nally took both race wins, with the impressive Dubliner looking at heading into next year’s British Superstock Championships.
Maghera’s Jason Lynn, as expected, wrapped up the Irish Supersport 600 title, but like Coates he could not find the winners’ podium in the two Supersport 600 races.
Antrim’s Robert Kennedy emulated Nally with a brace of wins and also set a new absolute circuit lap record for the Fermanagh venue.
Not content with the Supersport 600 wins, Kennedy also notched up a brace of victories in the 125GP classes, which were run alongside the Moto3 class.
The Moto3 wins went to Richard Kerr – who along with Nally, Coates, Kennedy and Lynn will be concentrating on the final Irish Superbike Championship meeting in two weeks’ time at Bishopscourt which will make up this year’s Sunflower Trophy Races.
Heading this year’s line-up at the Sunflower races will be English rider Danny Buchan, who will be back to try and retain the trophy he won last year on the Buildbase Kawasaki.
This time around, Buchan will be on board a ZX10 Kawasaki, which has been updated by MSS Kawasaki.
Buchan is convinced that the bike will be well capable of winning at the event this time around.
“I started the season off on a Ducati in the BSBs but I just could not get to grips with the package so we have gone back to the Kawasaki for the remainder of the season and have had Nick Morgan of MSS Kawasaki bring it up to BSB spec, so the bike is as good as any other Superbike out there,” said Buchan.
‘‘I am really looking forward to getting back over to Northern Ireland and the Sunflower meeting which has been very kind to me in the past.”
Joining Buchan will be Carrickfergus rider Glenn Irwin, who will be riding the Paul Bird BeWiser Ducati that he and Shane Byrne have campaigned on in 2016 in the British Superbike Championships.
Practice for this year’s Sunflower Trophy event takes place on Friday October 21 with race day on Saturday October 22 starting with warm-up at 9am and a full 14race programme to follow.
