By Michael Dunlop increased this afternoon at Armoy his Irish road race wins tally to 116 but only after holding off the tenacious, determined challenges of Davey Todd and Derek Sheils in a thrilling Causeway Geotech Open A race.
Opening race laps would see only 1.254 seconds cover Dunlop, Todd and Sheils.
By lap four Dunlop was 0.622 ahead of Todd with Sheils a further two seconds down.
The following lap saw King of The Roads Champion Todd, close to within 0.235 of Dunlop whilst third placed Sheils, wasn’t giving up, setting the races’ fastest lap, lapping at 1:40.053 seconds.
Lap six proved decisive as Dunlop moved respectively 1.424, 2.452 clear of Todd, Sheils.
Despite Todd’s best efforts on the seventh, final lap, he had to settle for P2, finishing just 0.704 behind Hawk Racing’s Dunlop.
Roadhouse Macau BMW exponent Sheils occupied P3 with fourth occupied by BE/RK Racing’s Michael Browne.
Dean Harrison astride the Boyce Precision Engineering/Russell Racing Yamaha finished top Supersport pilot in fifth, PreZ Racing’s Paul Jordan banked sixth.
Phil Crowe was seventh, Marcus Simpson led the Isle of Man challenge in eighth, Julian Trummer took ninth with Ballymoney’s Darryl Tweed wrapping up the top ten finishers.
Photo credit: Derek Wilson
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
