Gold for James at cyclo-cross race in Belfast

Gold for James at cyclo-cross race in Belfast

24 October 2018

A LARGE number of Dromara riders competed in round five of the Ulster Cyclo-Cross series in Musgrave park on Sunday, the event organised by VC Glendale. 

It was a rainy start to the day, but it did not dampen the spirits of Dromara’s young riders. 

Hugh Hetherington, Tom Cowan and Anna Armstrong were the first to take to the course in the U-6 race. The trio of riders showed great enthusiasm and were rewarded with goodie bags after their two-lap race. 

Next up was Eoin Foley in the U-8s and Eva Cowan in the U-10s race with both riders showing great determination to complete three laps of a longer course. 

In the U-12 race James Armstrong fought a close battle with Karl Rockett (Ards CC) over six laps of a longer, challenging course. With three laps to go James took the lead which he held to the line to claim first place, giving him back to back wins. A great day for Dromara youth. 

Three Dromara ladies raced at Musgrave — Martina, Diane and Andra. 

Andra, after a little coercing from Van Kellet following a warm-up lap, took to the line and had a solid raceme despite a mechanical issue with her seat post. 

Martina continued her good form to finish ninth in a strong ladies’ line-up. Diane worked her way through the field, and finished in fourth place overall, a great result. 

Ladies’ captain Wannita was delighted with the girls’ performance and hopes to join them again in the near future.

The B race had plenty of Dromara riders in the line-up and with 76 riders entered, many battles would take place all over the field.

First Dromara rider in was big Darren McCann in 18th place, his MTB training earlier in the year is proving decisive. 

Brian Kellett finished next in 26th place, the skin suit is definitely working wonders for his lap times. Aidy Booth built up a big lead at the start of the race, but was caught in the later stages by Gibson Chambers and Robert Davison.

A hard battle ensued on the last two laps with Gibson Chambers winning the three-man battle, finishing in 30th place with Robert Davison next in 36th and Aidy Booth 37th, Derek Graham also finishing 46th. 

John McGuigan travels far and wide to race cyclo-cross every week and he finished in 62nd place. Great to see Bryce Hetherington back on the bike again after injury, it hopefully won’t be to long till he imprints his signature in circles again.

Mick Foley was the sole Dromara competitor in the MTB support race finishing an excellent 4th place, rumours are rife that he is going to purchase a CX bike soon. 

Dromara had Barry Kellett, Neil Armstrong, Peter Davidson, Richard Cowan and Jack Ferguson taking to the line for the start of the A race.

Barry was gridded on the first row, Jack on the third row with Neil on the fourth and Richard on the fifyth row, thanks to previous performances. 

As this was the first race of the season for Peter, after his antics at the recent fox hunt, he didn’t get a grid position and would have a hard fight to make his way up through the field to finish a respectable 30th place.

Peter even jumped the boards and didn’t break any bikes, so all in all a successful return for Enduro Pete.

Just ahead of Peter there was a great battle between Richard and Neil, with Neil just getting the better of Richard to finish 22nd and Richard 27th, some great performances so far with these two consistently breaking the top 30.

Further on up the field we had Jack racing it out for a top 10, but this was not to be with some tough competition and a long road season behind him and he had to settle for 15th.

Thankfully, he managed to keep the bike up right this year after last year’s mud-hugging session. Next up we had the top man and all round living cyclo-cross legend Barry Kellett.

After having a rough start to the season with sickness he has started to come round and is on the hunt for podium positions, unfortunately, he was still feeling the effects of his man flu and had to settle for a respectable sixth place. 

All in all, a great outing for the Dromara CC A racers, now time to get the bikes cleaned and greased up for next week’s race.