Road Race 2
Wednesday 22nd April 2009 at 7:00 pm
Raymond upholds local bike honour
Raymond Dunlop upheld local honour in the the Lakeland CC summer Road Race league which moved to Tempo last week. In total, 30 cyclists from Omagh Wheelers, Fintona CC and the home Lakeland Club converged on the village for a short but tough race 28 around the Creagh Church area and it was the visiting Omagh riders that took the plaudits as they filled six of the top seven spots.
Raymond Dunlop was the local rider to mix it the best with this visiting sextet and he did well to come home in second in what was a quality race.
The timekeeper and judge for the evening, John McManus sorted the groups and handicap times, giving the front group three minutes on the middle group and another two minutes back to the scratch group.
The front group had an unlucky number of 13 and they were working well for three quarters of the race, but were caught prior to the end of the third lap.
The middle group of 11 riders was making in-roads on the limited front group, but the six man scratch group pace was high and this group caught the middle group shortly after the start of the second lap. The scratch men did not sit on their laurels after catching the middle group and they increased the pace thereby causing the now enlarged group to break into smaller groups.
When the race entered the last lap, and the front group was caught, Omagh Wheelers men Brian Mimnagh, John Paul Connolly along with Ray Dunlop forced ahead to open up a gap and they held their lead to the finsh line with 33 seconds to spare over the second group as Mimnagh edged home first with Dunlop second and Connolly third.
Caught napping was Kenny Boylan (Lakeland CC) who was to go with the break to do lead out for Dunlop for the final sprint, but Boylan came in the second group at 55 seconds behind the three leaders.
Mark Kavanagh of the Lakeland Club, was off form on the evening and found the pace tough going and crossed the line in the fourth group some three minutes behind the leaders. Road race rider Eddie 'The Eagle ' Carson (Lakeland CC) at present is having a battle for the leading Lakeland CC rider in the road race league with William Dunlop, but Dunlop is just having the edge over Carson in the overall league table.
Result of the Second Lakeland CC Road Race Summer League
All Lakeland riders except where stated
1 Brian Mimnagh - Omagh Wheelers 1:17:12
2 Raymond Dunlop
3 John Paul Connolly - Omagh Wheelers
4 Mark Sweeney - Omagh Wheelers @ 55 seconds
5 Seamus Keenan - Omagh Wheelers
6 San McLaughlin - Omagh Wheelers
7 Eugene Power - Omagh Wheelers
8 Kenny Boylan
9 Paul McAleer - Omagh Wheelers
10 Michael Gallon - Omagh Wheelers @ 1minute: 05 seconds
11 William Dunlop
12 Brendan Fee
13 John Quinn - Omagh Wheelers
14 Darragh McQuaid - Fintona Cycle Club
15 Eddie Carson