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Northern Irish fans of World Superbike should rejoice at the news that the premier production motorcycle championship is coming to a track near them, as WorldSBK is set to compete at the Lake Torrent Circuit for the 2019 season.

The news comes today in a joint press release from Dorna (the media rights holder to WorldSBK) and Manna Developments (the circuit developer), where a three-year contract was announced today.

There is one caveat of course, and that is the fact that there isn’t a Lake Torrent Circuit…at least not yet, as Manna has yet to break ground on the construction of the track, which is destined to live just 40 minutes outside of Belfast.

Upon arriving at the circuit on Saturday morning it was evident that the weather was going to play a big part in the days proceedings. With light but persistent rain falling all morning, the conditions were far from ideal for racing.

The conditions also caused a problem with my planned shooting locations for the day. I had planned to start at Joey’s Windmill, and work my way to the Lougher’s for the feature Superbike race.

Lougher’s is the fastest corner on the track.  On a Superbike the riders are touching in the region 170mph while fighting to keep the front wheel on the ground on the exit — a classic road racing corner, and a place I was keen to photograph.

After photographing the Superstock race from Joey’s Windmill it soon became evident that Lougher’s was not going to give me the shot I wanted, due to the conditions. I decided to abandon my original plan and jumped in the car and drove over to Rusheyhill near the start, as I wanted to get a group shot of the riders leaving the line.

Arriving in Rusheyhill I was surprised to find that part of the circuit was completely dry. There was only two miles between the two locations but the track conditions could not have been any more different. The feature Superbike race was run in arguably the best conditions of the day with Bruce Anstey taking victory after a great battle with Guy Martin and Lee Johnston.

After the Superbike race had finished I headed back to the car and drove over to Tornagrough for the 2nd Supersport race.

After a lengthy delay following a crash on the opening lap, the organisers decided to cancel the Supersport race and send out the Supertwins. By this time the weather had deteriorated all round the track and the organisers abandoned the meeting once the Supertwins race had finished.

Having travelled to Indianapolis through Dublin, it seamed only right upon my return to make the short trip over the border into Northern Ireland for the Ulster Grand Prix.

Having only visited The Ulster once as a spectator back in 2007, I’m pretty much a novice to the circuit. The corner names are not familiar, so I didn’t have much of a clue of were to shoot Thursday’s action from. One place I did know from my previous visit was the Deers Leap section, so I based myself there for the day.

The riders come onto the Deers Leap through a quick right-hand bend before wheeling over the crest at Deers Leap itself, and down under the trees into Cochranstown. There is a huge elevation change trough the section. Standing at the top looking down to Cochranstown it looks like the riders are dropping off the face of the earth as they the crest Deers Leap.

The racing on Thursday is actually the Dundrod 150, the traditional warm up to Saturday’s Ulster Grand Prix. After long delays due to two incidents in the early races, Guy Martin won the feature race of the day, after a race long battle with Bruce Anstey. Martin crossed the line only 0.244 seconds ahead of Anstey with Michael Dunlop 2.5 seconds further back in third.

All of  the results of the days racing can be found on the Ulster Grand Prix’s official website.