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Just reflecting on last night’s practice, we were so lucky that the weather was kind to us, with the worst of it being a bit of drizzle at the roundabout. Every time I looked up at the sky there was black clouds, but thankfully they didn't empty on us. Every practice session ranÌý without a hitch and the riders got a lot of laps in.

The evening seemed to go really well for Alastair Seeley, who finished fastest in two of the sessions and second in the other. Every time I looked at him he just had a big smile on his face and it appeared they didn’t even have to change a clicker on his bike. When things are going right for you everything seems to fall into place, and that’s how it is for Alastair at the minute at the North West. But things can change very quickly round here and it’s not as if he was miles ahead of everyone else, with Cameron Donald pipping him for fastest time in the Supersport and Michael Dunlop getting very close to him in the Superstock.

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On the other side of the garage Guy Martin seemed to be having a nightmare – he only got half a session in the Superbike practice and seemed to spend a lot more time in the garage during the session than on the track. But his team will have learned a lot from last night’s sessions and with the alterations he will have wanted made to the bike you can never rule Guy out come Saturday.

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Dungannon’s Ryan Farquhar also had a tough evening’s work - the Superbike he was supposed to be getting wasn’t ready and so he has to run his Superstock bike in the Superbike class. He also only got two laps last night and had to pull in due to his clutch slipping. In the Supersport practice he ran out of time during the session after pulling in to alter the fuelling of the bike and by the time he was ready to go back out the session had finished.

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Looking ahead to Thursday and we are hoping for blue skies for the next practice session. There are a few riders that will be looking to improve. Stuart Easton was having a lot of handling problems, so I would imagine his MSS Colchester Kawasaki team will have been burning the midnight oil to get to the root of the problem. On Thursday I would also expect strong showings from Farquhar and Bruce Anstey who seemed happy with his bike but was just unable get a clear lap.

Other riders that had good nights included Michael Rutter and his team mate Martin Jessopp who finished second and third in the Superbike class behind Alastair Seeley. Gary Johnson also had a good run in fourth and most impressive of all was Crumlin rider Steven Thompson being fifth fastest on his Superstock bike given that he is running his own team and his bike wouldn’t be as high a spec. Plus I can tell you Steven spent a lot of yesterday worrying about his day job as he was trying to organise plasterers!

It was an excellent start to the week and I have high hopes for a good number of Irish winners come Saturday.