Cookstown 100

Links to reports of Daley’s visits to the Cookstown 100 since 2013 are at the bottom of the page.

Cookstown 100 Road Races, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland

Airborne on the Hol-Taj GSX-R1000 Superbike in the 2014 Senior A Race.  Click on the image for a larger view

 

Location of Cookstown. Click on the image for a larger view

The 50-mile drive from Belfast docks to the race paddock on the Orritor Road just west of Cookstown centre goes via  Lisburn, Craigavon and Dungannon and passes to the south of  Lough Neagh.  Lough Neagh is a freshwater lake which supplies Northern Ireland with forty percent of its water.  With a surface area of 151 square miles it is the largest lake on the island of Ireland, the UK and the British Isles.

Cookstown is considered the “Capital of Mid-Ulster” and is famous for having the longest and widest street in Northern Ireland.  The town takes its name from a landed Ecclesiastical Lawyer, Dr Allen Cooke, who in the 17th century was granted permission by Charles I to form a market in the town; which subsequently became known as “Cooke’s Town”, and later Cookstown.

 

Main Street, Cookstown. Click on the image for a larger view

The circuit

The Cookstown 100 Road Races celebrated their 90th anniversary in 2012, having been first run on May 4th 1922.

(An aside: As is the convention with the naming of other Irish road race meetings (e.g. North West 200, Tandragee 100, Skerries 100, Mid-Antrim 150), the “100” in the meeting title refers to the fact that the races were originally held over a distance of 100 miles.)

With a circuit length of 2.100 miles the Cookstown 100 is generally the first event on the National Irish Road Race calendar, giving the riders their first chance to race on the roads. It’s an incredibly fast track with several jump sections and sharp 90 degree corners and it provides some excellent spectator viewing.  Marking the start of the build-up to the TT, the Cookstown 100 is usually followed immediately by the Tandragee 100 and International North West 200 meetings and then the TT itself.

Cookstown and the circuit. Click on the image for a larger view

Schematic diagram of the Cookstown 100 circuit. Click on the image for a larger view

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Daley’s racing at the Cookstown 100 since 2013.  Click on the date to view a meeting report:-

• 25 to 26th April 2014
• 26th to 27th April 2013