Team boss John Burrows weighs options for 2026 road racing season and British championship route with son Jack
Northern Ireland team boss John Burrows is undecided over his plans for 2026 as he weighs up his road racing and British championship options.
Former racer Burrows signed Manxman Conor Cummins this year to spearhead the Dungannon team’s bid at the North West 200 and Isle of Man TT, while Burrows teenage son Jack continued in the British Talent Cup Championship for a second season.
Cummins delivered the Burrows Engineering/RK Racing Team’s fastest ever TT lap at 131.5mph and finished sixth and fifth in the two Superstock races respectively.
The 39-year-old also rode in selected Irish national road races and was on the podium at Tandragee in the first Superbike race and the second Supersport race, where he was competing for the first time since 2007.
At Armoy, Cummins finished fourth in the feature ‘Race of Legends’ Superbike finale, missing out on a podium by two tenths of a second behind Michael Sweeney.
Meanwhile, schoolboy racer Burrows has been racing in the British Talent Cup for a second successive season and scored a best result of fifth at Donington Park earlier this month on the Burrows Engineering/RK Racing Honda, which he repeated in the first BTC race at Assen in the Netherlands on Saturday.
Burrows was on course to better that result on Sunday, when he led the second race in the early stages before slipping off in tricky conditions at the iconic circuit.
His father John reflected on the team’s results this year and says he will turn his attention to 2026 once the British Talent Cup Championship concludes in October at Oulton Park.
“Conor maybe wanted more for himself at the TT and would obviously have liked to be on the podium, but for us as a team – of course it would’ve been nice to be on the podium – but we got a fifth, which probably is our best result ever outside of the Supertwin class with Mike Browne and Dominic Herbertson,” Burrows said.
“But to get us our fastest TT lap ever at 131.5mph and fifth, we’re probably coming home satisfied from the TT.
“Supersport-wise, Conor had a top-ten [at the TT] and in one of the 600 races he had the sixth-fastest lap of the race. When he got going he lapped at over 125mph, which is not bad going on a 600.
“Tandragee was a good meeting for us with podiums and at Armoy, Conor was competitive with lap times but unfortunately we had a few wee issues but we had a fourth, although we could have had podiums just as handy.
“Conor’s a great fellow and we enjoyed the year with him.
“We’re going to wait until we get the British championship over with Jack and analyse what we’ll do going forward with road racing and what we do with Jack next year,” he added.
“My gut feeling is to maybe stay in the British Talent Cup but we’ll get the final few rounds out of the way, see where we end up and make a judgment from that.”