Ryan Farquhar with Cameron Dawson and his father, Ian.

The KMR Kawasaki team boss is still recuperating from injuries he sustained in a serious crash at the North West 200 last year and has yet to announce his plans for 2017, although he hopes to run his Supertwin machines on the roads once more.

Farquhar will sponsor 12-year-old schoolboy Dawson this season in the Young Guns series on a 125cc Aprilia and act as a valuable mentor.

The budding racer, from Killyman, is a quadruple mini-moto and pit bike champion and is the son of Ian Dawson of Dawson Engineering, a loyal backer of Farquhar’s KMR team over recent years.

“For me, this is returning a favour as Ian has been very good to me over the years,” Farquhar said.

“With the position I’m in now – with not being fit to race – I can devote more of my time to helping Cameron, who has shown excellent progress as a youngster in the mini bike scene.

“It also gives me great pleasure to be able to help a younger competitor and give him a chance in the sport. When I was 12 years of age there weren’t any opportunities for me to go racing and I had to wait until I was 18,” he added.

“It’s very important to get on bike at a young age nowadays and hopefully I can pass on some of my experience to Cameron as best as I can.

“Quite a few of today’s riders began their careers on these small bikes, such as Lee Johnston and Josh Elliot to name a few, and who knows, Cameron could be the next star, given the right guidance.”

Kyle White