No one thought it happen – road racing in 2020, but it did!
Full credit must go to Cookstown 100 Club and every member of the team who pushed forward with what at times must have seemed like an impossible task – running a road race in 2020 and under the ever present cloud of Covid-19.
But press ahead they did and the result was an extremely successful and extremely well run 2020 Cookstown 100. There were some restrictions in place such as movement around the course and the numbers of people who could be admitted, none of which were under the control of the Club. You can after all only play the hand you are dealt, and they played their hand well.
In 2020 if the only thing you can complain about is that the weather closed in and meant the feature superbike race had to be called off, then you have done well, and really that’s all there is to complain about – the Northern Irish weather – typical. But, for most of the day it was grand, warm and dry – couple that with a ‘full house’ and riders and teams who were clearly thrilled to be back on the roads and you get a brilliant road race.
The only disappointment now is that that is all 2020 has to offer in the Northern / Irish Racing Calendar. One thing is for sure it will have wet the appetite for 2021!
Onto the racing and we saw the return of Adam McLean after his off at 2019 Tandragee and he came back with the outstanding form he had been showing prior to the Tandragee incident – excellent – resulting in a double for him in the Supersport and Supertwin classes, and adding the Supertwin lap record to his list of accolades.
The Superbike Open race took three attempts to get a result, the win for Derek Shiels on his BMW showed more of the same from the Irish man – fast and stylish – as we have grown accustomed two over previous years and brought his total to 9 wins at Cookstown.
Paul Jordan continued to show his class and form, taking a strong win in the Moto3 / 125cc class.
Neil Kernohan with his distinctive helmet and always immaculately turned out machines took the 250cc / Lightweight class and Barry Davidson took the Junior Classic.
Vinny Breenan took the first race of the Day in the Senior Support Class, Junior Support was lifted by Michael Gillan by over 4 seconds in an impressive race.
Race 1 : Senior Support
Race 2 : Moto 3 (125GP) / Supersport 300
Race 4 : Loughran Commercials / Cookstown Caravans Supertwin
Race 5 : Greenvale Hotel Junior Support
Race 6 : Steelweld Fabrication Open
Open Race Restart :
Race 7 : Keylite / Bill Eastwood Contracts Junior Classic
Race 8 : Super Seal Windows Senior Support B & Non Qualifiers
Race 9 : JMB Coaches / Lafarge Cement Senior Classic
Race 10 : Royal Hotel Lightweight Supersport / 250GP / Classic GP
2020 Cookstown 100 Race Gallery :
UPDATE : The 2020 Cookstown 100 Race Galleries have been updated.
Photographs from each race have been added to the above results. Simply click on the race name and you will get a official race results card and a gallery from that race. There are over 200 photographs and unfortunately I may have missed a few riders but for most races I have managed to capture most riders.
As a bit of a warm up though here’s a few images from the warm up laps from the only Irish road race of 2020… The 2020 Cookstown 100 :
Make sure to check out and follow the Official TBNI Instagram Page where I will feature some of these images throughout the winter and spring to keep your timeline decorated with a few road racing machines…
https://www.instagram.com/tbni.blog
Check out the Official Cookstown 100 Website here : https://www.cookstown100.org
Check out the Official Cookstown 100 Facebooks Page here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/cookstown100/
Check out the Official Cookstown 100 Twitter Feed here : https://twitter.com/cookstown100
