It feels like the summer is at last creeping in, a longer daylight stretch in the evenings interspersed by sunshine braking thought high clouds, perfect conditions for a TT within the beautiful surroundings of the Iveagh District. We are now three events into our VC Iveagh Race League with last night being the turn of the Plantation Road TT. Some consider the Plantation road course as a slightly easier prospect than our last TT staged on the Castlewellan Road, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s a proverbial ‘walk in the park’ and with a headwind on the return leg it was never going to be easy. Yet once again, the one big factor in the riders favour was the weather, it was another fantastic evening with temperatures peaking at 16 degrees, ideal for some fast times regardless of the headwind.

It was always going to be hard to top the Castlewellan Road TT which attracted an amazing 34 riders but it seemed the buzz hadn’t quite departed and we were quite literally astounded that the numbers increased to 40 riders from nine different clubs. This of course meant the ‘behind the scenes’ crew had to work feverously to ensure everything went like clockwork, but with such an amazing atmosphere it wasn’t hard. Once again the current rider of the moment Chris ‘Kipper’ McGlinchey joined us and was determined to set yet another record, this time taking the Plantation Road KOM away from our very own Neil ‘Rocket’ Seffen. This was Kipper’s second outing on the Vitus Chrono and we were all intrigued to see what he could do, especially on the Plantation Road course.

We kicked off proceedings with Harry Martin, first man off at 7pm, each following rider released at one minute intervals. Once again we had a real quality group of the riders take part and we knew we were in for some fast times. For the second event in a row we were surprised at the large variation in clubs attending, it really is great to see so many clubs taking part in our Race League. As the rider after rider set off we started to look for the first returning riders from around the 22 minute mark and the first back on the evening was Graham Carson from TVR with a great time of 25:33. As each following rider blasted past the finish line, the times started to tumble with a number of riders commenting on personal bests. It was yet another fast night and as times were transferred to our time board excitement was growing with riders looking to know if they had indeed put in a PB.

Once again there was only one name in the reckoning for overall winner, Chris McGlinchey (CRC) has now not only ripped the Castlewellan Road TT apart but added the Plantation Road TT to his list of achievements. With a winning time of 21:42 and another course record no one could match this young man on the night. Well done once more Kipper, yet another amazing performance in a 2016 that is turning into something a little special, we hope to see you destroying our 15 mile Rathfriland/Castlewellan course in a couple of weeks.

Within the ranks of the VC Iveagh riders it was once again Neil ‘Rocket’ Seffen who took the spoils, this time dipping into the 23’s with a time of 23:41. Not far behind was another young rider having a very special season, Dan Gordon who was recently promoted to A2 followed Neil home with a time of 23:54. However one VC Iveagh rider stood out from the crowd, a rider who only took up cycling recently and joined our Wednesday Club Run last year, with only a handful of TT’s to his name Gordon Brown put in an astonishing performance with a time of 24:54. This result has shown us all the importance of being a diverse club and attracting riders to the leisure side of things, there are so many untapped racers out there and we are now seeing the benefit.

This TT was a continuation of our new partnership with Rice’s Hotel who shall be sponsoring the 2016 VC Iveagh RACE LEAGUE, not only are we running an internal club league but we have also introduced a visitors league. The visitors league is open to any rider from any club, simply compete in over 50% of our races throughout the season for a chance to win a meal for two in Rice’s Hotel, all details can be found in our Sponsorship Announcement post.

A special mention has to go to both the visiting clubs and individual unattached riders, so thank you to the following clubs:

Chain Reaction Cycles
Dromore CC
TVR
SMCC
Phoenix CC
West Down Wheelers
Apollo
Clann Eireann
Plush

It’s you guys and girls that make these nights so exciting, we hope you enjoy the events and of course we hope to see you at many more. A special word of thanks must also go to Tim Beattie from TVR who was on hand last night to help with the event in any way required. So it’s now onward and upwards to our next event, a 15 mile individual TT on our Rathfriland/Castlewellan course on Thursday the 19^th May. We hope to see you all there.

Results of the internal and external Race Leagues below.