| |
| Added: 07 Oct 2013 |
Category: 2013 Oval Racing |
| 2013 - #47 – Tullyroan Oval - 5/10/13 |
Irish Championship season and under the floodlights time. A combination of the run of daylight meetings at Tullyroan, me missing a lot of meetings at Ballymena this season, the thus far mild weather and the anticipation of the World weekend for most of the year, the Irish closed season and the dark nights feel as though they’ve almost crept up on me, it’s quite hard to believe it’s only a few weeks until another season is over, and beyond that it’s not that long to Christmas…. And then Easter and we do it all over again!
Whilst the Junior Productions had their Irish Championship on the biggest stage the championship has been held on as part of the World Weekend, it almost became merged into everything else that went on that weekend and it feels like Irish Championship season has only just begun, even despite the fact the Gp 2 Lightning Rods, F2’s and Junior Rods have all already had their championships, won by Lucinda Smyth, Chris Kincaid and Aaron Moody respectively, and congratulations to each of those drivers.
On the night it was the first running since the return of Superstox of their Irish Championship, the Grattan cars shared the front row with Gary on pole and Denver alongside, while Kyle Beattie looked the biggest challenger to the pair, and there was a good exchange between the three in the early stages before Kyle Beattie hit the front and pulled out of a bit of a gap and from there he wasn’t to be caught. Beattie went on to also win the revenge race.
The Lightning Rod Irish shared the same bill and it was Gordy McKee who finally took the top step in a championship podium. It took two attempts to run the race, with the initial running resulting in a pile up and Brendan McConnell amongst others picking up quite a bit of damage. The race was re-staged later in the evening to give the drivers time to work on their cars and I think everyone made it back out. The revenge race was won by Francis Rafferty.
The National Hot Rods returned for Round 5 of their World Series and the last meeting in the Tullyroan track Championship. Partly because the National Hot Rod qualifying series has been so exciting at the end of the series in recent years I find that this end of the series feels a lot like it’s just going through the motions, waiting for the exciting bit at the end (the exciting bit I think we’ll now be robbed off this series because we’ve been allocated more spaces, time will tell), anyway, with the points championship at Tullyroan still on the line for the Nationals at this end of the year it at least adds a bit of interest. Up front Feargal McNally took all three race wins, while the battle for the points came down to the final race with Mark Heatrick, Glenn Bell and John Christie all in contention. Heatrick’s enthusiasm in the final seen him jump the start 3 or 4 times before the race finally got going, “restart’s for jump starts” and “Lining up Ninja Karts after stoppages” have really been my pet hates of the season, I don’t understand why a race should be stopped for a jump start and then there is no penalty for doing it, I’ve lost count how many times the Juniors this year have had to be restarted, what is wrong with letting it go and docking the drivers afterwards? Or if it must be stopped then put them to the back of the grade like they do (or at least used to do) in Rallycross. At the end of the final Bell and Christie ended up joint on points and thus shared the Tullyroan track championship.
In the remaining support classes Sean Dynes was robbed of a sure final win when the 2 Litre final had to be stopped to put Derek Martin off who had ignored the black flag. John Murray was the eventual winner after Allen Cherry and Philip Beatty had won the heats.
In the ProStocks Ashley Hawe won both heats before Ryan Flemming won the final.
Approx Car Turnout 90 cars (14 National Hot Rods, 21 ProStocks, 20 2.0 Hot Rods, 11 Superstox, 24 Lightning Rods)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
.JPG)
|
| More Photos on TullyroanOval.com |
|
|
|
  |
|
|
|
