Fresh from their highly successful campaign at the Isle of Man TT races, the Devitt RC Express Racing team were back in action at the weekend with both Ivan Lintin and Alan Bonner contesting the Cock o’ the North meeting at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough – and it proved to be another strong meeting for the duo as they both scored some impressive results, the highlight being Lintin’s two wins in the Supertwin class.

With good conditions for the majority of the weekend at the North Yorkshire venue, Lintin dominated both Supertwin races, winning Saturday’s encounter by an impressive 30 seconds, his fastest lap being some six seconds quicker than the second placed rider James Cowton. He repeated the victory on Sunday, his winning margin on this occasion 15.5s.

He was also out in the 1000cc races, again riding the Kawasaki ZX-10R machine and he took no less than five second place finishes behind the unstoppable Dean Harrison. On each occasion, Ivan was comfortably the second quickest rider and, as well as the feature Cock o’ the North race, he took the runners up spot in the two Open and two Senior races.

Team-mate Bonner was making his third appearance around the 2.43-mile circuit and he got quicker and quicker with each and every outing. Having claimed fifth and sixth on Saturday, he took seventh in Sunday’s Open race before saving the best until last with a brace of fourths in the Senior and feature Cock o’ the North race. He also recorded his best ever lap in the final race of the weekend with a time of 1m48.639s.

Unfortunately, a machine problem kept Ivan out of the two Supersport 600cc races.

Ivan Lintin: 

"You can't fault Dean at the moment, he's on fire, but I didn't quailify well which didn't help me. Starting from the second row in four of the five races meant that by the time I'd worked my way up to second, he'd gone - and when I did start from the front row in the Cock o' the North race, I fluffed the start and ended up about sixth on the first lap! The Kawasaki ZX-10R was flying though and to set my fastest ever lap on a Kawasaki at Scarborough bodes well for the Gold Cup later in the year. The little Twin was flying and it hadn't been touched since the TT so we wheeled it out, complete with the flies on it, and took it to two wins so, overall, a good weekend."

Alan Bonner: 

"It was a really positive weekend for me at Scarborough with the Devitt RC Express Racing team as it was only my second proper outing at Oliver's Mount with the first one being hit by bad weather. I made good progress over the weekend, getting faster in each race and it was very pleasing to get fourth in the feature Cock o' the North race. I put in some good lap times too so I've got to be pleased. I'm really looking forward now to getting out on the Kawasaki ZX-10R at one of my local races in Ireland, the Skerries 100, and then on to the Southern 100. I've got to say big thanks to the Devitt RC Express Racing team and all of my personal sponsors for putting such a great package underneath me this year."

Ben Constable, Team Co-owner: 

“Dean’s proving to be unstoppable around Scarborough at the moment but we’ve got be happy with how our weekend went with finishes in all of the races we started. Unfortunately, the 600cc bike expired whilst we were warming it up on Saturday – so we did well to finish the TT – but, apart from that, it was a very smooth two days of racing.”

“Ivan’s got the Twin really dialled in now and is flying on that whilst he did everything he could in the 1000cc races. He set his own personal best lap on a Kawasaki around Oliver’s Mount whilst Alan was on it all weekend. The more laps he does, the more he gets to grips with the circuit and the key for him is that he’s enjoying it now too. We know he’s a fast rider and he doesn’t have to impress anyone; we all know what he can do and we saw that in his results.”

The team’s next outing will see Alan contest the Skerries 100 road races in Southern Ireland before both riders return to the Isle of Man in July for the International Southern 100 meeting.








Pictures by Pacemaker Press International