Nally claims Neil Robinson Memorial Trophy success at Kirkistown

Dundrod's Robert Kennedy leads Antrim rider Ross Patterson in the Supersport 600 race. Picture: Roy Adams.,

In far from ideal conditions, Cody Nally recovered from a bad start to lift the Neil Robinson Memorial Trophy at Kirkistown on Saturday.

The day’s racing was hit hard by torrential rain that lashed the Co Down track for much of the morning, but Davy McCartney, Clerk of the Course for the day, made the very wise decision to radically alter his race programme for the day.

Instead of two shorter races he gave each class one race of 10 laps, with the feature event, the Neil Robinson Memorial Trophy being 12 laps.

Chatting to one of the marshals before the start of the Neil Robinson race, I said that I thought a decent rider on a Supersport 600 bike could win, because the track was wet and slippery with spray getting worse by the minute.

Christian Elkin easily won the Moto3/125 race.

The Superbikes just couldn’t get grip.

It looked like I was going to be proved right when Dundrod rider Robert Kennedy, on his R6, was the early leader, but he soon dropped back, eventually retiring to the pits with a badly steamed up visor.

Kennedy led Crumlin man Ryan Rainey, Nikki Coates and Cody Nally for the first few laps, with nobody being able to break away.

As the race progressed, Nally was able to get into a lead, despite his bike suffering wheelspin almost from Fishermans to the chicane. Nally took the win, and a hard fought one at that, finishing 5.4 seconds ahead of Nikki Coates, while Gareth Keys was third, right on Coates elbow. The official time difference was .001 of a second.

Randalstown man Gerard Kinghan leads the Superbike race.

Ryan Rainey grabbed a close victory in the Superbike class. He finished, on a dry track, just over a second in front of Nikki Coates, while Cody Nally took third.

In the Supersport 600 race, Ballynahinch lad Korie McGreevy held the lead on the first lap, followed by Ross Patterson, Robert Kennedy and Jason Lynn.

McGreevy slipped off on the second lap, letting Patterson into a short lived lead.

Robert Kennedy took over on the third lap, moving away to win by 2.5 seconds. Jason Lynn was second, just over a couple of seconds behind Kennedy, while Patterson slipped back to finish a couple of seconds adrift of Lynn.

Portadown man Mark Murphy ran out as the winner of the F1 FE race.

He got the better of Stephen McKeown by less than 2 seconds, with Chris Campbell third.

In the Superbike Cup race, run along with the FE1, Paul Demaine had a handy win. He was over 15 seconds clear of Krzysztof Kapiczak.

Better known as Kris, the Polish man was nearly 10 seconds ahead of Andy McAllister at the finish.