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Well the first practice session has just finished and it has been a really good night for our Irish racers with Alastair Seeley and Michael Dunlop putting in some superb laps. It bodes well for their chances on Saturday. There are a lot of riders including Ryan Farquhar who are slightly disappointed tonight with mechanical gremlins. I feel some riders will have to make a lot of changes to their settings if they want to improve their performance on Thursday. So I think there will definitely be more of the favourites on the leader board come Thursday after they have made the required adjustments to their bikes.

The surprise to a lot of people was the strong performance of the veteran Michael Rutter who rolled back the years on his Ducati machine.

We had a good, safe night with the newcomers in general happy with their performances. BMW rider Simon Andrews couldn’t believe how much he enjoyed his first experience on the North West circuit. Safety wise it has been a good evening with thankfully no major incident to report.

The positive news tonight was that despite the dark skies it did stay dry and allowed the riders to get some fast laps in, to get their mind and machines adjusted to the high speeds and demands of the North West.

Tonight’s dry session and exciting action has put everyone in the mood for a great week’s racing ahead.