Richard Cooper seals fantastic four-timer at Bishopscourt Ulster Superbike meeting in 'shakedown for North West 200'
Richard Cooper romped to a fantastic four-timer as the 2025 Ulster motorcycling season blasted off on Saturday at Bishopscourt in Co Down.
The Temple Club hosted the first round of the SBT Ireland Ulster Superbike Championship on a sunny but breezy day.
Nottingham’s Cooper seized the opportunity for some dry track miles ahead of the North West 200 in May.
The former two-time British Superstock 1000 champion will again ride Alistair Russell’s BPE by Russell Racing Yamaha in the Supersport class and is continuing his successful association with Ryan Farquhar in the Supertwin class, riding a Kawasaki for Ireland’s most successful national road racer.
The 42-year-old blew away the opposition to win both Supersport and Supertwin races at Bishopscourt, while Cooper put up an impressive fight in the Superbike races, finishing on the podium twice despite his power disadvantage on the 600cc Yamaha.
Cooper said: “Today is a bit of a shakedown for the North West 200 really.
“I’ve not rode either bike since last October, so we’re finding a bit of pace and it’s good so far.
“The bikes are going well but whether we like it or not the R6 is becoming dated and the ER6 Kawasaki is among the older bikes on the grid.
“I think we can be in the mix and you never know at the North West, the slipstream plays a massive part in the whole race and you’ve only got to have a bike that can sit in the slipstream and if it works well around the corners, then we’ll be there or thereabouts.”
The five-time NW200 winner won the Supersport opener by more than 12 seconds from 2024 champion Korie McGreevy (McAdoo Kawasaki) and was in total control in the second encounter, which he won by over eight seconds from McGreevy.
In the Supertwin races, Cooper led home Gary McCoy (Madbros Kawasaki) by eight seconds in the first event and four seconds in the second race to cap an excellent day’s work.
He narrowly missed out on a sensational victory in the first Ulster Superbike race by two tenths of a second to McGreevy and claimed third in race two, coming home 0.352s behind McCoy (Madbros BMW) as McGreevy secured a close runner-up spot.