Successful weekend at Scarborough for Farquhar

Ryan Farquhar enjoyed a successful weekend of racing at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough with the Dungannon ace taking a hat-trick of victories to become just the second rider to break the 100-win mark around the 2.43-mile woodland circuit.

Competing at the Barry Sheene Road Race Festival, Farquhar was using the meeting as preparation for August’s Classic TT races and was on board Roger Winfield’s 500cc Paton and 1100cc Harris Yamaha over the course of the two days, the same machines he’ll use in the 500cc and Formula 1 Classic TT events.

With perfect weather conditions at the seaside venue, Ryan opened his account for the weekend on Saturday with a comfortable win on the Paton in the first leg of the 500cc Pre-73 Classic, coming home over eight seconds clear of the similarly mounted Ian Lougher. He then followed that up with an even more emphatic win in the Geoff Barry Classic Superbike, his winning margin on the Harris Yamaha some 24.9s.

Sunday saw a repeat result in the 500cc Pre-73 Classic race although it was a lot closer this time around with Lougher crossing the line just 0.2s adrift and it moved Ryan on to a total of 101 victories at the Mount. For his final two races, the Barry Sheene Classic Superbike and second leg of the Geoff Barry Classic Superbike, Ryan had to give best to Dean Harrison but runner-up spot in the latter was enough to give him the overall victory.

It was also a good day for Farquhar’s KMR Kawasaki team with Connor Behan taking victory in the Supertwins race at Kells to extend his lead in the Irish Road Race Championship.

Speaking at the end of the day, Ryan commented; “It’s been a good weekend and with three wins and a pair of seconds, it’s been the ideal shakedown for the Classic TT. It was my first time out on the Harris Yamaha and the speed of the bike is undoubtedly there as I was able to lap comfortably quicker around here than what I’ve done before on a Classic bike. I found out a lot about the bike in terms of areas that we can improve and if we can fine tune the chassis to handle the bumps of the Mountain Course, we’ll be in a good position.”

“Dunlop had given me a developmental tyre to use and it worked really well, probably the best tyre I’ve ever had so that bodes well too. The Paton was working very well too and it was good to have a close race with Ian on Sunday and we pushed each other hard all the way. It was great to be back on a bike I enjoy riding so much and I’m really looking forward to getting back to the Isle of Man in August.”

The Classic TT races take place from 16-25 August.