By Richard Cooper’s sensational Imatranajo debut, ended with the twice National Superstock 1000 Champion, winning the second ten-lap IRRC Supersport bout, in the process sealing a quadruple of middleweight category victories at Nordic Nations top road race.
As in yesterday’s Supersport tussle, Cooper (Boyce Precision Engineering by Russell Racing – Yamaha) was duking it out with Performance Racing Achterhoek’s Adam McLean.
On lap six, Cooper took the Supersport lap-record accolade off McLean, lapping at 1 minute 53.429 seconds.
This enabled the diminutive Nottingham racer, to move slightly further clear, opening a one second plus advantage.
1.106 at lap seven’s conclusion, Cooper surprisingly in the corresponding lap, ceded the race-lead to McLean, who maintained the race leadership role onto the tenth, last lap before Cooper regained P1, for his fourth Imatranajo race win from five race starts.
0.466 was all that was between Cooper, McLean as race explorations ended.
New joint IRRC Supersport Championship leader Petr Najman, 20.673 adrift in third, joined them on the podium.
Marek Cerveny battled to fourth post tight scraps with fifth to seventh place capturers Niko Tanskanen, Gary Johnson, Darryl Tweed.
Behind them, final positions within the top ten finishers went to Matej Vit (P8), Mauro Poncini (P9) and Rico Vetter (P10).
IRRC Imatranajo – Supersport Race 2 Result:
1st – Richard Cooper
2nd – Adam McLean
3rd – Petr Najman
4th – Marek Cerveny
5th – Niko Tanskanen
6th – Gary Johnson
7th – Darryl Tweed
8th – Matej Vit
9th – Mauro Poncini
10th – Ilja Caljouw
11th – Rico Vetter
12th – David Brook
13th – Sebastian Frotscher
14th – Thomas Wendel
15th – Mikko Uski
16th – Wesley Ankersmid
17th – Mathieu Rieder
18th – Miika Viiperi
19th – Karel Brandtner
20th – Jonas Stracke
21st – Daniel Chovanec
22nd – Erno Kivimaki
23rd – Thierry Vanhollebeke
24th – Olli Konttinen
25th – Osvaldas Lazdauskas
26th – Martin Baca
27th – Brian Fuidge
Photo credit: Tommy Vennard
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
