Adam McLean leads his McAdoo Racing team-mate Darryl Tweed in the Supertwin race at the Cookstown 100 last year.

Leading Irish road racing team boss Jason McAdoo is hopeful the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in Northern Ireland will allow more domestic race meetings to go ahead this year.

McAdoo has committed to running Adam McLean and new signing Darryl Tweed at whatever Ulster short circuit events take place in 2021, in addition to the Armoy and Cookstown 100 road races, which are currently scheduled for July and September respectively.

With the cancellation of the North West 200, Isle of Man TT and most Irish national races this year, McAdoo is hoping for the opportunity to give his riders as much track time as possible on the McAdoo Kawasaki machines at venues such as Bishopscourt and Kirkistown in Co Down.

All tarmac motorcycling in Northern Ireland is suspended until June, with Kirkistown currently set to host the first short circuit race of the year on June 5.

McAdoo told the News Letter:

“It’s hard to believe we’re sitting in February talking about the same problems we had a year ago but that’s where we are at unfortunately.

“We’re just preparing as best we can for when the time comes that we can go racing again. We’ve got new stuff for the ZX-10s coming so we can play around with that and get ready for whatever season we have.

“Any racing at all that we can do this year, then we will be there. We need miles for Adam and also for Darryl on the big bike more than anything.

“Adam isn’t doing the British championship this year and had decided to concentrate on the roads and also do as many short circuit events here as possible, to spend a lot more time on the big bike,” he added.

“I hope Armoy can go ahead in July and with a bit of luck they’ll be able to hold on as long as they can before pulling the pin, because I’m hoping that come May or June the bulk of the population will have had the vaccine.

“I can’t see why Cookstown can’t go ahead again in September because the club ran a faultless race last year and it went to perfection.

“If we can keep the flow of vaccinations going throughout the spring, then hopefully things will change for the better.”

Although very little racing took place in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, McAdoo – who runs the famous Cookstown-based team with father Winston – found the situation easier to cope with compared to 2019, when Tobermore rider McLean was ruled out for the season following a crash at the Tandragee 100.

“To be honest, it was tougher when Adam was injured and we weren’t able to go racing when the events were going ahead,” he said.

“That was actually worse from the perspective of a race team than what it is now, because life in general has pretty much ground to halt and nobody is going racing.

“So it’s actually not as bad as when Adam was injured because we knew he was capable of winning races, and we were watching races go ahead that we knew Adam could be winning.

“It’s terrible of course from a racing point of view overall, but I’m reluctant to get too down about the racing side of things when you see other people suffering, in terms of losing people close to them,” McAdoo added.

“When you see what people are going through then you have to take a bit of a step back because as much as we miss racing, there are people dying from this virus and of course that takes priority.

“But I am hopeful that the vaccines will be our key to getting out of this situation and so far, the speed of the vaccination programme has been fantastic.”

The Cookstown 100 was the only Irish road race held last year, where McLean notched a double in the Supersport and Supertwin races.