By Outside of Derek McGee becoming 2017 Irish road race Superbike champion, plus Michael Sweeney and Derek Sheils Supersport, Open race successes, without a doubt the main highlight of race day at the inaugural East Coast Racing Festival arose in the 125/Moto 3 encounter.
A dramatic race which saw early leader Paul Robinson encounter problems, paved the way for Gary Dunlop to secure a hugely popular maiden roads victory.
Since first delving into roads competition last year at the Mid Antrim 150, the son of the legendary Joey Dunlop has established himself as one of pure road racing’s most accomplished, high calibre exponents of 125 machinery.
Photo by Rod Neill
Joining the Joey’s Bar MCC team manager on the rostrum on Sunday afternoon was between the hedges veteran Nigel Moore and KNR backed Melissa Kennedy.
Looking back on the rest of yesterday’s race action, there was no surprise in the Senior Support class with dominant category national champion Joe Loughlin chalking up yet another race win aboard the Crossan Motorcycles Yamaha.
David Howard and Jonathan Gormley concluded the rostrum finishers, whilst the Classic 250 and 350 races where headed respectively by prominent class protagonists Richard Ford and Barry Davidson.
Ballymoney’s Seamus Elliott powered to 400 victory, it wasn’t quite enough though to stop second place finisher Paul Gartland from clinching Irish road race 400 championship honours.
The sole remaining class winner from a day’s racing unfortunately curtailed from 4:00 PM on wards due to increasing rain around Killalane, was John Ella who lead the small 250 challenge.
Despite having bad weather a plenty thrown at them throughout the weekend, the organisers of the first ever East Coast Racing Festival deserve praise in abundance for running a textbook excellent meeting, which concluded the 2017 Irish roads season in positive fashion.
Results per class from the Carole Nash East Coast Racing Festival, is as follows:
125/Moto 3:
1 Gary Dunlop
2 Nigel Moore
3 Melissa Kennedy
4 Sam Dunlop
Senior Support:
1 Joe Loughlin
2 David Howard
3 Jonathan Gormley
4 Andy McAllister
5 Kevin Baker
6 John O’Donovan
7 John Cahill
8 Alan Johnston
9 Noel Smith
10 Rodney Little
11 Michael Hoey
12 George Scott
13 Stephen Carr
Classic 250:
1 Richard Ford
2 Brian Mateer
3 Gary Hutton
4 Alex McVicker
5 Ken Parkes
6 David Crawford
7 Robert Wright
8 Trevor Stewart
Classic 350:
1 Barry Davidson
2 Sean Leonard
3 Freddie Stewart
4 Herbie Ronan
5 Sam Kinkead
6 Ian Thompson
7 Jonathan Doran
8 Billy Lyle
9 Gearoid Hoare
10 Kevin Callan
11 Paul McMahon
400:
1 Seamus Elliott
2 Paul Gartland
3 David Howard
4 Callum Laidlaw
5 Steve Tobin
6 Alan Johnson
7 Mark Shiels
8 Stephen Morrison
9 Brian Loughlin
10 Aaron Boyd
11 Enda Trearty
12 Michael Hoey
13 Yvonne Montgomery
14 Lloyd Collins
15 Stephen Davison
250:
1 John Ella
2 Vic Allan
Words by Stevie Rial
