Exciting conclusion to Supermoto championship at Nutts Corner

The track was wet for practice but quickly dried out, although the light dropped dramatically towards the end of the day and the weather became bitterly cold.

The feature race of the day was for the David Jefferies Memorial Trophy. This was led for the first few laps by Connor Cummins. Before long, both Scottish visitor Jamie Duncan and Davy McKee overhauled the Manx rider and started to pull away. Cummins held on bravely to third place, despite a late challenge by Philip Wylie. Duncan took the race win, 1.9 seconds ahead of McKee, with Cummins third, just .3 of a second ahead of Wylie.

Davy McKee, who came out of retirement for the day, also recorded two race wins out of three starts in the Solo Prestige category. He recovered from a slow getaway in the first race, to take a win over Jamie Duncan and Philip Wylie. It was a similar result in the second race, but by a greatly increased margin. McKee beat Duncan by over 11 seconds, with Connor Cummins, a faller in the first race, taking third. Jamie Duncan took a win in the last race, finishing 4.6 seconds ahead of Cummins. Mark Spratt took third, while McKee, on a borrowed bike after his own gave problems, slipped back to eighth. It gave the Solo Prestige championship to Ryan Fenton. He finished the short season with 215 points, just 2 ahead of Jamie Duncan, with the Scot just a point ahead of Philip Wylie.

Justin Reid and Mark Donnelly shared the Quad Prestige spoils. It was Donnelly who took the first race win, with Cathal McCartan in second place. Justin Reid kept his championship on track in third. Reid took a hard earned win in the second race. He was hounded all the way by Cathal McCartan. McCartan was riding round the outside of Reid, but clipped the grass and lost time with a couple of laps to go. He did recover, but was .1 of a second back at the line. Mark Donnelly was third. With a lap of 42.4 seconds, Donnelly broke the track record in the last race. He forced his way to the front, opening up a 5.2 second gap over Cathal McCartan. Colin Forsythe finished in third place, while Justin Reids fourth was enough to seal the championship for him. He finished the year on 267 points, while Donnelly had 259. Cathal McCartan ended up in third place overall on 224.

Richard Griffiths won the opening Solo Clubmans race. He came from behind Jason Meara to win, after Meara used a full wet tyre with ripped to pieces after a few laps. Kris Clarke finished in third place. A new tyre for the second race, and it was back to the top step for Meara. He was almost 7 seconds ahead of Griffiths at the line, with Clarke right on his rear wheel. No mistakes from Meara in the final race either. Shortened to eight minutes plus a lap after an earlier red flag, Meara was still 12.5 seconds ahead of Kris Clarke at the end. William Dunlop, a surprise entry for the meeting, was far from out of the equation, just a couple of seconds off Clarke. The Solo Clubmans championship went to Loughbricklands Jason Meara. He only had his first ever Supermoto meeting at Eglinton a couple of weeks ago, and had he not made a bad tyre choice on Sunday, would almost certainly have had 6 wins from 6 starts. He ended the season on 219 points. Michael Huey had 199, a single point ahead of Mark McMullan.

Dean Colhoun was the winner of the opening Clubmans Quad race, finishing over 13 seconds ahead of Blake McCormick. He, in turn, was being chased hard by Alistair Wilson, but despite a late charge, Wilson was under a second back in third at the line. Alistair Wilson had a fairly emphatic win in the second race. He was able to put over 17 seconds into Colhoun, who became embroiled in a dice with Tommy Muldoon. Dean Colhoun returned to the top of the podium in the last race, where he was over 10 seconds ahead of Wilson. Again Muldoon finished in third place. The championship went to Alistair Wilson. He had 256 points, while Tommy Muldoon, on 236, finished second. Blake McCormick, who retired from the second race and didn’t start the final one, took third in the title chase on 175 points.

Roy Adams