Wet start for North West 200

Heavy rain and strong winds marred the first practice session of this year’s North West 200 road races. Many of the top riders failed to make the qualifying time on Tuesday leaving all to play for in Thursday’s session.

The top qualifier in the Superbike class was Richard Britton on a Suzuki GSX-R1000. He completed the 8.9mile circuit in 5:08.68 with an average speed of 104.567mph.

Ryan Farquhar took his Yamaha R1 to just 0.12 seconds off Britton’s time followed by John McGuinness on the Monstermob Ducati 998.

TT specialist David Jeffries put in a fastest lap of 5:09.99 on his first time out on the TAS Suzuki GSX-R100 to leave him in fourth place followed by Steven Thompson on a Suzuki GSX-R1000 and British superbike star Steve Plater on the Honda SP2.

The production class saw Suzukis dominate with only four riders out of 28 on anything other than GSX-R1000s.

Jeffries finished with the fastest time of the session, completing the lap in 5:21.69 with Alex Donaldson in second and Nigel Davies in third.

Michael Rutter – riding the only Ducati in the class – Ryan Farquhar and Adrian Archibald all failed to meet the qualifying time of 6:25.43 in the official laps but Archibald’s unofficial times saw him do a 5:14.95 lap averaging 102.485mph – over 2mph faster than Jeffries.

In the 600cc practice the top five riders all finished within 10 seconds of each other. Farquhar took the top spot on a Kawasaki ZX-6R in 5:18.24 but Jim Moodie gave him a run for his money on the Triumph Valmoto Daytona 600, finishing just two seconds behind. Archibald came in third followed by Bruce Ansty on a Daytona 600 and Archibald on a GSX-R600.

The second practice session takes place on Thursday evening with races starting at 11am on Saturday.

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