Derek Sheils notched up his sixth Open Superbike victory and eighth in total at the KDM Hire Cookstown 100 over a sprint distance on Saturday.

The race was red-flagged twice, with Adam McLean initially crashing out unhurt on the first lap, while Stephen McKnight brought the red flags out again after another non-serious incident on lap one of the second restart.

As a result, the race was reduced to five laps and pole man Sheils immediately took the lead on his Roadhouse Macau BMW from fellow Irishman Michael Sweeney (MJR BMW).

The duo broke away from chasing pack by the end of the opening lap, with only half-a-second between them.

Thomas Maxwell was in third place on his 1000cc Kawasaki ahead of McAdoo Racing’s McLean and Neil Kernohan (Yamaha R1).

Paul Jordan, who qualified fourth, was languishing in ninth place after a mistake on the brakes on the Burrows Engineering/RK Racing Suzuki.

Positions at the front remained unchanged as Sweeney continued to shadow Sheils, but the race leader pulled out a decisive advantage on the final lap as he took the chequered flag by 2.1s.

Sheils, who made a winning debut on his new BMW S1000RR at the King of Kirkistown meeting in Co Down, told the News Letter:

“I took a few laps to get the tyres up to temperature and I was watching my lap times on my dashboard and making sure that I was doing consistent times.

“Then on the last lap I pushed in a fast lap to try and break a little bit of a gap and it was grand in the end.

“Considering the lack of track time I was happy enough with the lap times and since the lap record was set (1m 22.641s by Michael Dunlop in 2013), I’d say the track has probably deteriorated a little bit over the years,” added Sheils, who set his fastest time on the final lap in 1m 23.387s.

“We knew the rain was coming in during the afternoon so it’s a pity the big race was held until the end and we missed out.

“I’m going to take a run out at Mondello Park at the weekend and it’s been a long number of years since I’ve been there, so we’ll see how that goes,” Sheils said.

“But the bike is really good and it seems to be handling well, but there’s a fair bit of learning with the electronics because we’re downloading data from the bike all the time as we go, it’s definitely some piece of kit.”

The 38-year-old has now won nine times in total at Cookstown, including eight wins in the Superbike class and a sole Supersport success.

Mullingar man Maxwell was seven seconds behind Sweeney in third with McLean taking fourth on the McAdoo Kawasaki.

Kernohan and Mike Browne (Burrows Engineering/RK Racing Yamaha 600) completed the top six, with Jordan working his way through to finish in seventh.

Vinny Brennan from Meath and Cork man Michael Gillan were the respective winners of the Senior and Junior Support races, while Jordan triumphed in the Moto3/125 race by 1.9 seconds from the evergreen Nigel Moore.

Neil Kernohan won the Lightweight Supersport/250GP race overall on the 250cc Logan Honda, which was stopped on the final lap when Tweed crashed out on his 400 Kawasaki.

Barry Davidson won the Senior and Junior Classic races.