Richard Britton Racing
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25th April 2004
'Cookstown 100'
Photo Willis MarshallRichard Britton came away from Saturdays Cookstown 100 Road Races with a rather broad grin after as he put it, "that was not a bad shake down for the North West 200.
Britton, who had made it clear that the Cookstown 100 meeting was only to shake the dust of the long winter break, almost let himself go in the Cookstown 100 Open Race in which he finished second to Lusk rider Martin Finnegan. "I was enjoying that so much that I almost got carried away" said Richard. That was really good fun.
Coleraine Landscapes Open Race
Richard set of in the opening Superbike race in fine fashion with the Enniskillen rider leading for the first eight laps of this ten lap race. He was followed in hot pursuit by Adrian Archibald, Martin Finnegan and Darren Lindsay with Britton and Finnegan both getting their breaking points at Orritor corner all wrong at the end of lap eight. This let Darren Lindsay into the lead and he crossed the line with Archibald second and Finnegan third. Richard overshoot cost him a lot of place and he finished the race in 7th place.
"I made a mess of the first right hand corner, said Richard. I wanted to leave my breaking to as late as is possible, but it was too little to late. Still I enjoyed that run out on Patsy O' Kane’s big Suzuki which is really going well".
Coleraine Landscapes 600 Race
This was quite possibly the best race of the day with the first four riders across the line all within the old lap record.
Again it was that man Darren Lindsay on the Blacks R6 Yamaha who stole the show with a start to finish win over Richard Britton.
Britton was second for the full duration of the 10 lap race on the John Harris backed 600 Honda. However, Adrian Archibald who had started in group B managed to pip Richard for second place on corrected time which left the Enniskillen man back in third place.
"I wanted to try and stay with Darren for as long as is possible but on this 2.1 mile circuit you quite quickly catch up on the back markers which cost me a little time. However, Darren was riding really well and I think he probably deserved the race win" said Richard.
Royal Hotel Cookstown 100
The 12 lap Royal Hotel Cookstown 100 feature race turned into the fastest race of the day with a freight train of riders including Finnegan, Britton, Archibald, and Alex Donaldson all nose to tail for the full race distance.
Finnegan hit the lead from the drop of the flag and was never headed in the race duration. Britton locked himself firmly on Finnegan's tail while Archibald did like wise on Britton back wheel. This is the way is stayed until the finish with less that half a second splitting this trio.
"I had the BBC on board camera on the bike and that should have made some interesting viewing. Finnegan was burning rubber all the way round the circuit but I just could not break out of his slip stream as Archie was towing me all the way. It was a brilliant race and one which I enjoyed" said Richard.
Richards next outing will be on Saturday next at the Tandragee 100.
Photo Willis Marshall
