Australian Cameron Donald, making his debut for the Wilson Craig Honda Team, totally dominated the Good Friday and Easter Saturday two-day opening Irish Superbike Championship meeting at Bishopscourt.
A dazzling Donald stormed to six wins from six starts in the Superbike and Supersport classes as well as lifting the prestigious Enkalon Trophy for the second time.
Following Friday’s opening wins in the supersport and superbike races, Saturday saw the 33 year old from Melbourne in breathtaking form, winning the opening superbike race by almost 17 seconds from Matthew Percy, Stephen Thompson, Mark Johnston, Denver Robb and Richard Rea, who flashed across the finish line separated by less than a second.
In the second race, which was also the 35th running of the Enkalon Trophy Race, Donald was slow off the line and took a lap to overhaul early leader David Haire.
However, once in front the only opposition came from Kirk Jamison (Angus Contracts BMW), who had actually led the Flying Aussie for four laps of the first Superbike race before dropping to seventh after an overshoot and got within a second of the leader in this feature race.
But unable to make a telling challenge, he eventually finished four seconds behind with Michael Dunlop having his best ride of the weekend in the final rostrum position on his new Street Sweep Kawasaki.
Donald said: “What a start to the season six races and six wins for my new team.
“It doesn’t get much better than that and to win the Enkalon Trophy, which I first won in 2007, was the icing on the cake.”
Donald was equally dominant in the supersport class, where Gary Jeffers finished second in the first race on Saturday before crashing out of the action in race two uninjured.
Alastair Kirk was in magnificent form, taking third in race one on Saturday, holding off the Dunlop’s Michael and William before going one better in race two despite race-long pressure from William Dunlop.
Saturday saw double wins for William Dunlop in the 250GP class, Marty Lennon in supertwins, James Higginson won both clubman open races, Dylan and Derek Lynch took the sidecar honours and Stephen McAdoo just edged Johnny McCay in both supersport 400 races. Paul Robinson and Korie McGreevey shared the 125GP honours.