Dominic Herbertson: Pressure is off for the North West after Cookstown clean sweep

English road racer Dominic Herbertson celebrates his quadruple at the Cookstown 100

James Robinson

Cookstown 100 conqueror Dominic Herbertson will go into next week’s North West 200 with a spring in his step following a career-best performance on the Irish roads in Co Tyrone.

The Hexham rider claimed a quadruple for Dungannon team Burrows Engineering/RK Racing after winning both Superbike events on Saturday and the Supersport and Moto3 races.

It was the perfect start to the 2024 road racing campaign for Herbertson, who replaced Republic of Ireland rider Mike Browne in ex-racer John Burrows’ team.

The 33-year-old delivered in style at the narrow 2.1-mile Orritor course in the bright spring sunshine as the large crowds were treated to some incredible racing.

Herbertson, who edged out Skerries man Michael Sweeney in a red-hot Superbike finale by just over a tenth of a second after 12 scintillating laps, says the pressure is now off as he gears up for Northern Ireland’s biggest road race on the north coast, where opening practice takes place next Wednesday.

“The BSB paddock packs up and comes over to the North West to the north coast don’t they?” Herbertson said.

“For me, being able to go to the first Irish national of the year and get all the wins means the pressure’s off to an extent now for the North West because we’ve done the job on that side of things and everything else from here on is a bonus.

“The North West is the top of the discipline, the top of the mountain of Northern Irish racing in general and, although the ambition is the TT, we still have to put a good performance on.

“As far as my own results, I would like to improve on my lap times and I’ve been around there on my own BMW, so I want to try and get sharper and maybe battle on with the BSB lads and get my mind tuned in – that’s my main goal.”

Herbertson’s fantastic four-timer at Cookstown included a hard-earned Supersport success on the Burrows Yamaha from Sweeney and a dominant win on the Ulster team’s Moto3 Honda machine from Irish road racing stalwart Nigel Moore.

He also won Saturday’s first Superbike race from pole position comfortably after Sweeney ran into issues with his BMW machine on the final lap.

Ballymoney’s Michael Dunlop, who won the Superbike invitation race at Cookstown on Friday, did not race on Saturday after crashing in the Supersport invitation race. Dunlop walked away from the incident, which happened on the first lap.