The fifteenth season of the Duke Road Race Rankings commences in just under a weeks time, not at its usual venue of Oliver's Mount, but in Northern Ireland, at the JDF Mid Antrim 150 National Road Races on Friday and Saturday 1st & 2nd April.

The opening meeting of the road racing season has attracted a top class entry including seven times winner of the Duke Road Race Rankings title Ryan Farquhar who counts the 3.5-mile Clough Course on the outskirts of Ballymena as one of his favourite venues where he has taken the chequered flag on numerous occasions over the years.

The organising Mid Antrim 150 Club has attracted no less than 60 Newcomers for the 12 race event which carries a total prize fund of £18,000.

Retired racer and now team owner, John Burrows who enjoyed many race long battles with Ryan Farquhar, brings his new two-man team of Derek Sheils and Malachi Mitchell-Thomas to Clough for their debut rides of the 2016 road racing season on the Cookstown BE Racing prepared machines.

2016 sees one of the busiest April's in recent years with another three rounds of the Duke Rankings taking place after the Mid Antrim 150, firstly at Oliver's Mount Scarborough for the Bob Smith Spring Cup National Road Races on Saturday and Sunday 16th & 17th April, before returning to Ulster for the Around-A-Pound Tandragee 100 Road Races on Friday and Saturday 22nd & 23rd April, followed seven days later by the KDM Hire Cookstown 100 Road Races on 29th & 30th April.

The 2016 Duke Road Race Rankings Championship has a total of 26 rounds, culminating at the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix in November, the previous two seasons the winner has not been confirmed until the final round - will the close rivalry be repeated this year as the season unfolds?