Ryan Farquhar got his 2011 road racing season underway in perfect style on Sunday when he dominated the Ian Watson Trophy races at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough. The KMR Kawasaki rider was again in imperious form around the woodland circuit and won all 7 races that he started including the feature trophy race for the fourth consecutive year.

With the 2.43-mile seaside venue bathed in glorious sunshine, Ryan’s day started with a comfortable heat win for the feature race and he followed this up with a hard fought victory in the first leg of the Supersport 600. Fellow countryman Michael Pearson pushed him hard in the opening laps but by mid race distance, he began to edge away and when he took the chequered flag at the end of the 8 laps, his winning margin was some 7.1s. It was a similar story in the first Super Twin race where this time the pressure was coming from Ivan Lintin but, again, Ryan, pulled away to take another comfortable victory, this time by 7.2s.

The opening leg of the Ian Watson Trophy event saw a three-way tussle between Ryan, Pearson and Derek Shiels with little to choose between the trio in the first couple of laps. However, with the fastest lap of the race, 1m46.595s, Ryan opened up an advantage and continued to extend his lead for the remainder of the race, taking the victory by just over 4 seconds on the new ZX-10R Kawasaki Superstock machine. His fifth win of the day came in the second leg of the Supersport 600, again from Pearson, whilst he also made a double in the Super Twin event with Lintin again having to settle for second.

That just left the second leg of the Ian Watson Trophy and the first four laps saw very little between Ryan, Pearson and Shiels. All the time though, Ryan was leading and doing enough to keep the other two behind him but, in the second half of the race, he increased his pace to pull over 3 seconds clear and thus take his 7th win of the day and his 74th in total around Oliver’s Mount.


Speaking afterwards, a delighted Ryan said:

“It’s been a really good day although I’m absolutely shattered now! With it being the first race of the season, it takes a while for the muscles to get working again whilst my races were all back to back today and I was jumping off one bike straight on to another! It’s been a very worthwhile meeting today and I’ve certainly learned a lot with the new ZX-10R. It was a bit lively over the bumps and crests around the course so we’ve got a bit of work to do with set-up but we were making changes all day and have found a good direction to work in so I'm confident we’ll get there.”

“I was really happy with how the 600 was working and the improvements that we’ve made to the bike over the winter appear to have moved us forward so that was very positive although the ultimate test will, of course, come at the likes of the North West 200 and TT. The Super Twin was also working well although I’ve a few changes that I want to make before the Cookstown 100. You can’t expect everything to be 100% right at the very first race but that’s why they're invaluable as we now know what areas we need to work on and improve in time for the next race. It’s been hard work today with the warm weather but 7 wins from 7 starts is the perfect start to the season and I’m really happy with how it’s all gone.”

Ryan’s next race will be at the opening round of the Irish National Road Race Championship, the Cookstown 100 on Saturday 30th April.