Kyle White: Ulster pride, lap records, controversy and drama at resurgent NW200

Huge crowds, inspired by fantastic weather on the north coast, flocked to every vantage point around the 8.9-mile course to witness the return of Northern Ireland’s premier road race for the first time since 2019.

They wouldn’t leave disappointed.

Even the old gripes of past years could not be revisited as the organisers ran the event like clockwork on Saturday, with a revised six-race programme – including an additional race after Thursday’s postponed Supertwin race was added to the schedule – completed in its entirety by 4pm.

And best of all, both race days passed without any major incidents, while not a single red flag appeared throughout Saturday’s main bill.

Lap records were obliterated in every race at the weekend except the showpiece Superbike event, making a mockery of suggestions speeds would be down after a three-year enforced absence due to successive Covid-related cancellations.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and Glenn Irwin stole the lion’s share of the limelight as the Honda Racing rider extended his winning Superbike streak to six victories, stretching back to his maiden triumph in 2017’s epic duel with fellow Carrick man Alastair Seeley.

This was Irwin’s second Superbike double, coming after he engineering a big-bike clean sweep on Paul Bird’s Ducati in 2018, when Irwin was a runaway winner.

Yet, the 32-year-old didn’t quite have it as easy on this occasion, and Irwin – by his own admission – had to push harder than he has ever done around the ‘Triangle’ course to see off hard-charger Davey Todd.

It has now been 10 years since an overseas rider scaled the top step in the Superbike class, when that man was John McGuinness back in 2012.

Long gone are the days when Northern Ireland’s homegrown riders were