North West 200 – crowds building to record numbers ahead of weekend showpiece races

Many more arrived on ferries on Thursday, joining the thousands already gathered on the north coast as the practise sessions came to a close and the competition began in earnest.

There is an even greater buzz around this year’s event following the cancellation of both the 2020 and 2021 meetings due to the Covid pandemic.

The News Letter’s Kyle White has been on the course all week and senses an unprecedented high level of anticipation ahead of Saturday’s showpiece races.

“There is definitely a great sense of anticipation around the return of this event,” he said.

“It is the first time the North West has been held in three years, and it’s also the first major road race since the Macau Grand Prix in November 2019.

“Everybody is really looking forward to it, and even today (Thursday) up around the north coast there are really, really big crowds.”

Race organisers are continuing the trend of broadening the appeal of the festival beyond the hard-core race enthusiasts – providing a week-long line-up of stunt shows, concerts, chat shows and firework displays as well as the on-road thrills and spills.

Kyle said all indications are that the fans, who have been starved of their beloved road racing for more than two years, could break all previous attendance records.

“It looks like the crowds are coming back in even greater numbers than before.

“Tuesday isn’t normally that busy a day, but even on Tuesday it was noticeable how many people had turned out to watch the first practise session, and the longer the week goes on the more people turn up. Now it is all gearing up towards the main race day on Saturday.

“Saturday is the main race day when the two big races of the whole event, the two Superbike races, which are the blue ribbon events.”

Just ahead of last night’s first race, Kyle said the weather was a slight cause for concern, however, the expected rain should have petered out by Friday evening.

“The good thing from the organisers’ point of view is that it seems by the weather forecast that on Saturday it should be a predominantly dry day,” Kyle added.

Saturday is the main day of competition with a full programme of racing taking place between 9.15am and 9pm.