By 2014 Irish road race super twins champion Connor Behan has proved once again this season, why many people believe he is a future international road race winner.
Main highlights of 2015 have included ninth place finish in lightweight TT, second place finishes in super twin races at Kells, Walderstown and Killalane.
Connor was brutally honest when summing his 2015 pure road racing season up.
“This year has been a complete nightmare from start to finish of I’m totally honest since me and Farquhar decided it would be best to part company at the North West.
I can’t thank Davy and Erin Hamilton enough for literally picking up the pieces after the North West, they were the only reason I made it to TT 2015.”
When asked if he feels he has improved as a pure road racer this year, Connor said:
” I would say slightly, i used this year to build a good relationship with Davy and we concentrated on developing the 650 throughout the remainder of the year. Shane Wogan from Wogan performance (owns Derek mcgees 650) was a big part of that too and I am still working with him on some new ideas on improving the 650 engines so I’d also like to thank him a lot.
Both me and Derek have had some close races this year and although Derek took the win with me a close second in most of the races I’ve assured him that it won’t be the case next year when I’m fully fit! Haha.”
TT 2015 marked the second time he had competed at TT Races, it would prove an extremely challenging two weeks on and off the mountain course.
” TT 2015 again, disaster! Me and Davy spent 7 days solid before the TT building a completely new bike which was untested. I’d like to thank John McCann from Moto Merchants in Armagh for playing a crucial role in getting the bike ready. So needless to say by the time I got to the TT I was spent, I picked up a virus and ended up in hospital. Was passing out all the time, couldn’t breathe, was generally fit for the bin.
I parked the 600 it would of been an impossibility to ride it and concentrated on the 650. I managed 4 laps practice but had to do 5 to qualify so I set out on Thursday night practice. How I completed the lap I will not know, I had to talk my way around.
I did my fastest lap somehow too which was just crazy. After the lap I literally collapsed off the bike and had to spend the next day in bed recovering. Same story for the race, we managed a 9th place matching my result on the KMR machinery from last year which is a bloody impressive result really considering the hurdles we had to jump on the run up to it.”
When it comes to his favourite pure road racing circuit, Connor says:
“I’d say tandragee in the north as it’s just mental! But I love walderstown in the south, I’ve had some very good and conflicting results there! I love kells, Aileen and Lester have been like a mum and dad to me since I’ve been over here so kells is always a very relaxing meeting for me and it’s a very well ran meeting.”
Looking to 2016 Connor is targeting top quality results at Vauxhall International North West 200 and TT 2016, alongside aiming to regain the Irish road race super twins championship.
“2016 for me is a very important year, i will be opening a dyno centre on annaghmore on the run up to Christmas so getting that running smoothly is important to me but as far as the racing is concerned, using the data we’ve gathered from this year we are going to build one hell of a 650 and focus on reclaiming the championship.
The North West and TT are very important to me too I’ll be aiming for some good results there on both the 600 and the 650. All in all it’s set to be an interesting season, but it’s all down to the machinery we put together. We will see how it goes.”
There’s no doubt Connor has the proven pace to be in contention for multiple results of the highest quality next year.
Already in his short pure road racing career to date he has become 2014 Irish road race super twins champion, runner up in 2013 newcomers A Manx Grand Prix, second place finisher in 2014 Dundrod 150 super twins race.
