By Jarno Saarinen Circuit Imatra debutant supreme Richard Cooper made it an Imatranajo Saturday race wins double, after adding IRRC Supersport Race 1 laurels to prior Open Supersport race opener success.
The Nottingham rider became embroiled throughout in an engrossing battle with race pole-sitter, Supersport lap-record re-gainer Adam McLean whose P1 attainment possibilities, took a hit on lap-four, when the timing screens showed he had a twenty second jump-start penalty.
Despite this, former Ulster Grand Prix Super Twins race victor McLean, kept prominent proximity with Nottingham’s Cooper across remaining competition circulations.
Lap eight saw McLean retake the 600cc lap-record off Cooper, recording an astonishing lap time of 1 minute 53.568 seconds.
As the tenth final lap wrapped up, Cooper (Boyce Precision Engineering by Russell Racing Yamaha) took first on the road, followed by McLean who in the end finished fifth overall, third in terms of full time IRRC exponents.
Claiming P2 by just 0.324 of a second, top full-time IRRC exponent spoils and twenty-five juicy Championship points was Petr Najman, after overhauling fellow Czech ace Marek Cerveny.
Niko Tanskanen took fourth with Team Schleizer Dreieck’s Gary Johnson finalising the first six finishers.
The evenly matched trio of Matej Vit, Darryl Tweed, Mauro Poncini accrued positions seventh to ninth whilst the last spot within the top ten leader-board, went to Ducati exotica equipped Juho Kantola.
IRRC Imatranajo – Supersport Race 1 Result:
1st – Richard Cooper
2nd – Petr Najman
3rd – Marek Cerveny
4th – Niko Tanskanen
5th – Adam McLean
6th – Gary Johnson
7th – Matej Vit
8th – Darryl Tweed
9th – Mauro Poncini
10th – Juho Kantola
11th – Ilja Caljouw
12th – Rico Vetter
13th – David Brook
14th – Thomas Wendel
15th – Sebastian Frotscher
16th – Mikko Uski
17th – Karel Brandtner
18th – Mathieu Rieder
19th – Mike Mace
20th – Wesley Ankersmid
21st – Olli Konttinen
22nd – Daniel Chovanec
23rd – Miika Viiperi
24th – Ari Petteri Kuivalainen
25th – Erno Kivimaki
26th – Jonas Stracke
27th – Osvaldas Lazdauskas
28th – Brian Fuidge
Photo credit: Tommy Vennard
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
