Watson takes Victory at Croft Road Race

With the weather all week scheduled to be moist, wet or wetter there was a serious bit of negotiation done by the Dromara CC team for a weather window on Thursday night. The Clouds parted and the sun came out and brought with it a grand selection of 60 quality road racers.

During the run up to this event there has been huge amounts of work from our “former club person of the year” and who is back gunning for that trophy again. With every well run event it os the behind the scenes work that allow us to bring an exciting a safe race so a big shout to all the DCC helpers as well as the handicap/group fairy for setting up the groups so that they would all finish on the same lap at the same time.

There were 4 groups who started with varying handicaps and the potential of a prime lap sprint on the 5th lap must surely of been a suitable carrot to keep everybody driving through. This course is not one where you get to hide in the group and wait until the end to sprint for the line – its clearly been designed by a mountain biker. Plenty of hard tight climbs to make you work from the start line whether you are at the front of the group or at the end. At the end of lap 1 you could see cracks starting to appear in all the groups. Eddie Doyle could be seen grimacing and cracking the whip in his group with the smell of money on lap 5 just too tempting.

A large scratch group who would normally race through like a well-oiled machine seemed to be under a bit of pressure as Watson, Montgomery and Mckee started to hit the front. It wasn’t long before scratch group had split completely and the three men were on their own. By lap 4 they were a mere 30 seconds from catching the last group ahead of them and it was then that Mckee would lose contact and fall back to what was left of a scratch group.

Behind racers would try to put groups together as pretty much everybody looked like they were trying far too hard. No one had an easy ride in the bunch with no rest on this course. Laura Wylie would show her form holding on to her fast group until the final laps to take the first female prize. Martina Hawkins was pushing for performance of the night as having made a slow start would pick up positions as the lapped ticked by and would take 2nd female.

At the head of the race Monty and Watson would push each other to the limit with neither giving an inch. It would come down to a sprint for the victory. With a final effort it would Lindsay Watson who would just take the win from Monty.

The final podium place was up for grabs and a sizeable group would be in contention. On the final corner, it would be Nathan Mullan who made the decision to go long and hold his sprint all the way to the line. Nathan would claim his 3rd place as well as Dromara’s Road Race Club Champ 2019 (We won’t hear the end of this lol)

The Top 10 would look like this:

Lindsay Watson – Powerhouse Sport – Winner
David Montgomery – U/A – 2nd

Then several weeks later… (Animals the pair of you!)

Nathan Mullan – Dromara – 3rd
Paul Wilkinson – WDW – 4th
Gerard Craig – Vc Glendale – 5th
Kyle Wethers – Dromore – 6th
John Heverin – Clann Eirann – 7th
Gareth McKee – Banbridge – 8th
Danny O’Connor – VC Glendale – 9th
Lee Harvey – VC Glendale -10th

With positions to fight for there were several riders looking that they needed a well earned rest and a Hot dog. The great news was that not only was there a Hot Dog but biscuits, Tea, Coffee and even some juice provided at the Dromara Connect building in the village. Many thanks to all the helpers who organised the food – which seemed to go down very well.

A final thanks to all the competitors for supporting this new race as well as the kind comments which are always great to hear. It was great to see a big showing from Dromore, WDW’s, VC Glendale, Banbridge and Shimna as well as all the other cycling clubs. A big shout out to Dromara Connect for providing the food and hall for the presentations, to the off-roaders who were in charge of marshalling/running the event and the motorcycle riders who lead the groups around a truly first class job.

Happy Birthday Graham Beckett – doesn’t look a day over 60 when he finished the race.

Photos can be found here.