Testing conditions for DCC’s Enduro Race
Dromara Cycling Club hosted their first open Enduro race on Saturday 9 October 2021. The venue was Slieve Croob in County Down, tallest peak of the Dromara Hills and the source of the river Lagan.
This enduro race consisted of three stages, ranging in speed and physicality. Recent down pours made the stages extremely wet and challenging, which allowed for a great day’s racing for all competitors from youngest to oldest. Race day started damp with low cloud but the rain did ease. The event attracted over 90 competitors.
Onto the results. Fastest across the three stages was Senior rider Gary Donaldson (Vitus First Tracks Race Division) with an overall time of 9 minutes and 52 seconds. Dromara CC’s Ben Wilson finished second overall, first place in the Under 21 category. Ex-Dromara rider Drew Armstrong took third place overall, second in the Under 21s.
A great ride from Zara Barnett taking the win in the women’s category we are sure it will be the first of many.
Brett Kelly took 3rd in the Junior category at his debut enduro, showing he doesn’t need an engine to go fast. Rumour has it he has a big 2022 season planned, one to watch!
As well as there being wins in category from DCC racers, there was also a win for Adrian Booth in the Booth VS Chambers championship which now makes it 2-0 despite Gibson putting in a stormer of a run-on stage 3, it was no match for Booth’s consistent speed over the three stages.
A big well to James Armstrong who showed no signs of waiting for his dad as he tackled the treacherous conditions taking a solid 7th in juniors.
It was good to see Cameron Mccusker making a return to bike riding as he took on 3 big stages of racing. Cameron showed his signature style and was hot on Brett Kelly’s heals after the first few stages, but the lack of riding took its toll as Cameron ate dirt on stage 2 allowing Brett to pull away, well done Cameron good effort.
We had great help from many club members during the race but a special thank you to the two main men behind the event, Brian Wilson, and Davy Broome for all their efforts before during and after the race. On behalf of Brian and Davy we would like to give a special thank you to each and every marshal that took helped out on race day and the race preparation days.
We’d also like to thank the landowner for allowing us to race on his private land, Andy Coburn for taking over control of the mic on the day to keep competitors firmly wound up and to Mech Monkey for checking bikes pre-race and providing prizes for all the winners of the race. We would like to thank Ivan Park for looking after the Sportident timing. Finally, we would like to thank the riders for coming along and supporting our first open Enduro race. Hopefully we can do this again next year.
Results here
A further breakdown of the results can be found on Sportident.
Photos
James Wright – Facebook – here
