The KMR Kawasaki team were out in force at Oliver's Mount, Scarborough last weekend for the annual Cock o' the North road races and it proved to be another profitable two days of racing for the team with Jamie Hamilton, James Cowton and Connor Behan all recording some top class results.
The Yorkshire seaside town saw cooler conditions than of late and Hamilton was in excellent form, finishing all seven of his races on the podium! Second place was the order of the day in the three 1000cc races, including the feature Cock o' the North event, where he set a new personal best lap around the woodland venue at 1m47.380s whilst the runners-up spot was also claimed in the two Supersport 600cc races. To complete a superb weekend, two third places were achieved in the Supertwins races where he was one of four riders to break the lap record held by team manager Ryan Farquhar.
Driffield's Cowton was also one of those four as he took a brace of fourths on the 650cc ER6 Kawasaki, pushing Hamilton hard on each occassion whilst Behan was well to the fore too, taking a pair of sixths in the two races. The Northwich rider, having just his second outing at the circuit, improved his lap times considerably and also put in some fine performances on the 636cc Kawasaki in the big capacity races. Fifth in the second 1000cc event was a superb effort and the pick of the bunch whilst he also took 7th in the feature race and eighth in Saturday's 1000cc affair.
Speaking afterwards, a pleased Farquhar commented: "All three lads rode really well all weekend and to have every rider finish every race inside the top eight is an excellent achievement. Dean Harrison was in fine form and unbeatable in the 600cc and 1000cc races but Jamie was a good second in each posting some very strong lap times. I made a few changes to the Supertwins bikes but they didn't work as I would have liked and it's proving hard to get the development work done as the races are coming thick and fast now. There's not a lot of time to get things done and whilst I know there'll be good at some of the meetings, we'll definitely need to improve them by the time we get to the Ulster GP next month."
"Young James again impressed me, challenging Jamie very hard on the 650cc whilst Connor did exactly what we hoped and improved with each outing. It's the first circuit he's visited for a second time and that showed with the reduction in his lap times and the bettering of his previous results so, all in all, it's been a very successful and enjoyable meeting."
Hamilton and Behan now head to this weekend's Armoy road races where there'll be joined by North West 200 winner Jeremy McWilliams, the former Grand Prix winner making his debut at the meeting.
Photo - Simon Charity.
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