Pauley's Sprint Wins The Day
Road Race 10 on August 2002
Despite the poor summer Lakeland Cycle Club have been blessed with fine weather on most of their race evenings and it was no different on the tenth and last road race of the season.
Having led the road race league for most of the season, Mark Mc Girr secured overall victory in this season’s road race league by only a few points from a very determined and strong Cecil Arthur in second place.
With final points up for grabs and old scores to settle from previous races nobody from the club wanted to make their move too early.
The 24 mile race started on the Sligo road and took in Kinawley, Derrylin with the finish back in Enniskillen. Colin Boyle (Omagh) attacked as usual from the start of this race, in which all the riders started together in the one group, and held a small lead for one mile before Peter Jones chased him down. After a few attacks from Peter Jones, who seemed to be very strong, a significant move was made when he was joined by Raymond Pauley and Colin Boyle and the trio quickly opened up a gap on the rest of the bunch. Sensing that this was the move which was likely to succeed Frankie Flynn, Kevin Burns and David Flynn made an escape from the main pack and joined the leaders just before the gap got too big. These six riders now all worked hard together to distance themselves from their other close rivals some two minutes behind.
Kenny Boylan who is not known for getting left behind soon broke away along with Mark Mc Girr and started to chase down the leaders. The pace that Boylan was setting soon became too much for young Mc Girr who got dropped when Boylan accelerated into top gear in hot pursuit. With the leaders in full flight Jones kept applying the pressure and dropped a couple of riders from the group.
In the last few miles Boylan had the leaders in sight and with the finish approaching it would be very close. In the last mile Pauley looked behind to find Boylan on the back of the lead group taking a well earned rest before launching himself up the road in a burst for the line. Pauley and Boylan now opened up a gap on the rest of the riders who were surprised to see him there, and in the final sprint Pauley took his first win of the year just ahead of a very tired but happy Boylan.
Results
| Pos | Cyclist | Club | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raymond Pauley | LCC | |
| 2 | Kenny Boylan | LCC | |
| 3 | Kevin Burns | LCC | |
| 4 | Peter Jones | LCC | |
| 5 | Colin Boyle | Omagh Wheelers | |
| 6 | Mark McGirr | LCC | |
| 7 | Frankie Flynn | LCC | |
| 8 | David Flynn | LCC | |
| 9 | David Dunlop | LCC | |
| 10 | Stephen Coyle | LCC | |
| 11 | Wesley Foster | LCC | |
| 12 | Patrick Withers | Fintona CC | |
| 13 | Cecil Arthur | LCC |