Lakeland 1-2-3 At FCC Inter-Club Race
Inter-Club 4 (Fintona) on Thursday 19th July 2007
Fintona Cycling Club promoted the penultimate round of the inter-club team Road Race series last Thursday evening. The 5 event series that involves the Emyvale, Fintona, East Tyrone, Lakeland and Omagh club's latest round was run over the popular 21 miles, 'Sionfinn' circuit, starting in Fintona, going out the Tempo Rd, turning left at McCaffrey's Cross, on to Clabby, and finishing back in Fintona following the climb of Sionfinn.
The race was split into three groups with each group containing riders of similar ability going by form in recent events. The front group had a 2 minutes 30 seconds advantage over the middle group, with the final group a further 2 minutes 30 seconds back.
The second and third groups merged as the riders reached Clabby, where the real racing appeared to begin with a group of half dozen going clear, including a member from each club, with the home club's representation coming in the form of Patrick Withers which meant the peloton lost any impetus to chase. This group were still one and half minutes in arrears of the front group at the bottom of Sionfinn, they in turn had a lead of 40 seconds over the main bunch at this stage.
The race split into several groups on the climb, with a small number of front group riders surviving it to the top led by under 16 Padraig Kane (Emyvale CC), however Raymond Dunlop, Kenny Boylan, Dane Dunlop (all Lakeland CC), and John Paul Conolly (Omagh Whs) set a blistering pace on the climb, cutting down the deficit to less than 20 seconds over the top.
Raymond Dunlop, Dane Dunlop, and Boylan caught Kane's group on the descent and broke away with Raymond leading in a Lakeland 1, 2, 3 to the finish. Conolly was next man home in fourth, while the home club's Ed Casement held the advantage he had been given at the start of the night over the rest of the second and third group riders to take an excellent fifth place. Patrick Withers was next of the FCC riders home, finishing just outside the top ten. FCC's leading veteran rider for many years, Brendan Kelly also scraped inside the top 15. Declan McGirr and Fergus McGirr finished outside the top 20 after a mechanical mishap for Declan and an under par performance from Fergus.
A provisional calculation of the results put Lakeland at the top of the table, with East Tyrone also still in contention for overall victory come the final round in Fivemiletown on August 8th. FCC would like to thank everyone who helped ensure a safe and succesful night's racing took place, especially those members of the other club's involved in the series.
Thanks to Fintona Cycling Club Secretary Patrick Withers for this report.
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