Ray Dunlop Finishes Second In Newry 3 Day
Newry 3 Day on Friday 19th June 2009
A three man Lakeland Cycle Club team entered the Newry 3 Day 4 stage race, which was held from Friday, June 19 to Sunday 21 and the team came away with great results from the event. The team consisted of team leader Ray Pauley, John McManus and former Ras Dun na nGall winner Ray Dunlop. The team manager was club founder Pat Clarke and Dane Dunlop was mechanic for the weekend.
The three team members were in the thick of the action on Friday evening as the opening 40 mile stage was held over three and half laps of the Newry to Warrenpoint dual carriageway before the competitors faced the stiff Granian Road climb just three miles before the finish.
Within the closing miles of the race some seven riders just managed to break clear and they held a five second gap over the chasing group which contained Ray Dunlop, who came home in 27th place. Pauley and McManus came home in 55th and 56th place just 80 seconds behind the stage winner namely Stuart Henry of North Down CC.
Stage two on Saturday morning saw the Lakeland members tackle three laps of the Hilltown-Kilcoo-Rathfriland circuit and then had to tackle two major climbs between Hilltown and Rostrevor. Even with breaks happening throughout this stage, the Lakeland team ensured any breaks were all made void.
After the race had completed the three lap circuit, the race then headed towards Rostrevor and this suited Dunlop, due to his climbing ability and he got away in a 10 man break and managed to stay in this group over the second climb. This breakaway group on the run in to the finish line broke up into two parts and Dunlop came home in the second group in seventh place, just five seconds behind the stage winner Gary Crory (Unattached).
Dunlop had now moved up to ninth place overall from his opening 27th place on stage one. McManus finished the stage in 52nd place just over five minutes with Pauley in 54th place just over six minutes behind the stage two winner.
On Saturday evening, it was the short four mile time trial for stage three of the Newry 3 Day event. The time trial even though it was short would now sort the places and even seperate many riders as many can be good road racers, but others can be a better time trialist.
First of the Lakeland CC team was Ray Pauley, who was the eighth man to start on the line and he then was followed by club secretary John McManus. Pauley got the better time over McManus on the time trial by just eight seconds. However, overall on this stage, Pauley finished in 48th place with McManus in 50th.
Ninth last man off was Ray Dunlop and even with him facing top class time trialists in the race, Dunlop give it all and came home with the third fastest time of the stage to finish just 31.89 seconds behind stage winner Marcus Christie (Usher Irish RC) and the new race leader. However Dunlop had now moved to second on overall General Classifiaction. John Madden (Bann Wheelers) was the only guy to have a better time in the time trial and Madden was now in third place overall, just three seconds behind Dunlop.
Sunday morning saw the remaining 62 riders face a road stage of 62 miles, which was mainly flat along the coast road from Newry to Dundrum before the race turned inland towards Castlewellan, Hilltown and back to Newry.
On this stage, Ray Pauley and John McManus had the job to protect the second place for Ray Dunlop on this stage. For the first 15 miles the race saw plenty of breaks but none got more than 40 seconds and were not a threat to the race leader Christie or second placed man Dunlop.
As the race was approaching Kilkeel, Dunlop suffered a puncture and he managed to get a quick wheel change from his team car, but had over six miles of chasing to get back to the bunch which he managed to do before Newcastle. By this time McManus had lost contact with the bunch and later retired. When Dunlop made it back to the bunch, Pauley ensured that the peleton tempo was slow to allow Dunlop to rest.
The race headed for the category one climb in Castlewellan and here Dunlop was up among the top ten places as it was possible some of the guys that were within seconds of Dunlop"s second place could attack but that failed to materialise.
As the race was heading to Bryansford for the second climb, Christe crashed but the peleton eased up to allow the race leader back in to the race. This is a gentleman rule among cyclists. Again more breaks broke clear but all to no avail and now the race was concluding for a massive bunch sprint. At the line the stage was won by Peter Williams (Juiced Orchard Wheelers) with Ray Dunlop finishing in 16th place with Christe, the race leader just one place behind Dunlop. All the top ten place men on General Classification were in the same group as the stage winner.
Pauley, due to his hard work on the final stage, came home on the stage in 54th place and on overall General Classification in 52nd place. Dunlop was second overall on General Classification and was delighted with the finish and also with his performance over the four stages of the 3 day event.
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