Ex-British superstock 600cc champion, 20-year-old Jamie Hamilton from Ballyclare, is set to make his Relentless North West 200 debut on May 21, riding for the Coyles Wright Racing Team for whom he will also contest the Irish Superbike Championship and Adelaide Mondello Masters series riding a new ZX-10 Kawasaki.

Hamilton, related to former North West 200 double winner Gary Cowan, said: “I’ve been going to the North West since I was in a pram and have been wanting to race at it for the past couple of years, but people have been putting me off by saying wait another year or two.

“It has come to the stage that I do not want to wait any longer and just want to experience the buzz of riding the Triangle course.

“I know it takes three years to properly learn the circuit and I just want to go out this year and enjoy the event.

“I won’t be setting any targets other than to finish the race with a smile on my face. The ISB and Adelaide Mondello Masters, the first round of which is this weekend, are my main goals for 2011.”

Hamilton, racing since he was 13, has spent most of his career racing on the mainland and was the first local rider to win an Aprilia Superteen race in England in 2005 before stepping up to the BSB series culminating in winning the superstock 600cc championship in 2009 riding for the Gearlink Kawasaki Team.


Hamilton said: “I had a difficult time in 2010 and I was not a happy racer as we struggled to get a budget together after our championship winning season. It is an impossible task to race in BSB on the cheap and after last year I wasn’t prepared to do that this season. Thankfully Coyles has stepped in and we are really looking forward to racing on the home circuits, my first time since 2005.”

The first round of the new Adelaide Mondello Masters series takes place at Mondello Park on Saturday and Sunday and Hamilton faces tough opposition in the form of current ISB champion Marshall Neill, ex-champion Brian McCormack, Michael Dunlop, Kirk Jamison, and Jack Kennedy.