Padgett Honda’s Davey Todd performs the NW200 Supersport double

2023 Northwest 200

super sport

With Ben McCook

Padgett’s Honda star’s Milenco, Davey Todd, rose from last year’s runner-up quartet with this year’s Supersport double and thus returns home to a much happier man in 2023. But he has not easy and have to fight teeth and nail with some of the best road racers in the world for every win. On both occasions, the 27-year-old calculated his perfect running time to take the lead at the most crucial moment for glory.

If you have not witnessed it with your own eyes, you will not be able to believe how fierce the Supersport matches are this year.

Any of Todd, Michael Dunlop, Richard Cooper, Dean Harrison, Alastair Seeley and Peter Hickman could win; each took turns taking the lead several times.

Thursday’s race opened the meeting but it was initially red flagged due to an incident in lap one Mill Rd.

After a long delay, the bikes are back at it and all eyes are on the pole keeper, Alastair Seeley, who is debuting the V2 Powertools, Ducati’s mate.

“People see the Bulega lead the world championship and see that it won the Daytona and think that’s the bike to go on, but you still have to ride it and it doesn’t like the bumps around here.‘ said the little witch.

“Vietnamese” is how Michael Dunlop describes the opening lap of a super sports encounter, and he wasn’t much wrong.

Seeley managed to hit the hole but Todd took the lead before heading into York. Cooper next takes over the cloak and it looks like the little jockey can get through it. However, Cooper was having a hard time stopping Mathers and Magherabouy (something he’d never really get over the course of the weekend), and Todd was back in the lead by the time the leads arrived. Portrush.

Cooper took the lead again at the end of the lap, he and the BPE/Russel YZF-R6 seemed to have some control until the race was halfway through.

Seeley rarely falls outside the top three but Michael Dunlop made the moves in the group and it was he who led in the third round. The locals dared to dream of another Dunlop victory around the triangle circuit, but tit-for-tat play and teamfights made the outcome unpredictable, with the lead rolling out like a hot potato for the remaining miles.

Todd eventually overtook Magherabuoy on the final lap as Dunlop and Seeley nearly tripped each other in the Metropole, Saltburn’s driver clearing the line for a second NW win, adding to the steamy victory. which he won in 2019… This makes much more sense, however, as some consider a wet win an anomaly; this time he beat the rest fairly and with integrity.

“That means a lot after all, they took second place last year and are so close- I don’t want to let it slip away. It was a dream.” a cheerful Todd declared in parc-ferme.

In the end, Seeley came in 2nd with Cooper in 3rd.

Saturday’s race offers more of the same with the usual suspects banging on bars on the run to Coleraine in the first lap.

Cooper had brake problems again and he overcame a snag, which seems to have cost him any chance of winning.

Peter Hickman pushed the Trooper Triumph even though it was written on the net that he was racing.”through teeth grinding” after all the controversies that caused his FHO team to go home early. Indeed, the 666 trio took the lead at the Metropole in lap 1, but with some of his opponents up to 9 mph faster on a high-speed straight, the world’s fastest road racer will have a hard time. .

Amazingly, Cooper was back in the lead in round 2 and in round 4 he was reasonably ahead of Seeley. The Nottingham man was stretching in front of a group of him, Todd, Dean Harrison and Hickman with Dunlop trailing close behind, but Cooper’s quick brakes continued around the bend and that allowed Todd to return.

On the final lap, Todd and Cooper were side by side on the run to Coleraine but it was Padgett’s star who noticed him when it mattered and he would win, over Cooper, to creating a double famous Supersport.

Hickman finished the podium and won a new lap record but lamented an inverted marker they caught in the Metropole, saying it cost him the challenge. ‘I won’t say what I think,’ the Lincolnshire man said.

Harrison and Dunlop led Seeley in next, who backed off after a bird collision in the final lap caused him to literally pluck. Adam McLean, Mike Browne, Paul Jordan and Joe Loughlin finished the top 10 with former World Endurance champion Matthieu Lagrive going home in 11th place – a stunning result for the celebrity newcomer.

Result 2023 Northwest 200
Supersport Race One

Result 2023 Northwest 200
Supersport Race Hai

Result 2023 Northwest 200
Supersport’s Fifth Qualifier