Lining out for the Irish Road Club in the 2008 Tour of Ulster were: Matthew Ward, Peter Hawkins, Simon Kelly, Neil Delahaye, Greg Swinand, Colm Cassidy, Seamus Kelly, Johnathon Gibson and Fergus McCauley guesting.
The weather was fine all weekend and the frantic racing helped the lads fine tune their form before the FBD Insurance Ras at the end of the month.
On Stage one which seen the race in many groups, paul Griffen and Scott McDonald broke clear. But with 500metres to go McDonald went off course leaving Griffen to take the stage from our own Neil Delahaye with Greg finishing 9th.
Stage 2 went to Ryan Connor (Pezula) from David Mccann and Pual Griffen (Giant Asia) Simon Kelly finished 7th and Neil in 9th place. This moved Delahaye into 5th place overall at 54seconds.
The closed road added a rare bit of freedom for the riders on stage 3 for the Time Trial with some very fast times posted. Neil set a fastest time with 4mins 51 secs with 4 riders to go including David McCann who is National 10 mile Champ. In factr McCann was the only rider to beat Delahaye with a time of 4 mins 49secs.Colm Cassidy finished 9th in the TT. This great result for Neil moved him into 3rd place overall and the team into second place overall behind Eurocycles by 1min 49secs.
Going into the final stage the racing was frantic with breaks getting away and rejoining repeatedly.
A group broke clear with 7 riders which included Simon Kelly. The gap went to 1 min 15secs nut the bunch reacted and back down it came. As the gap dropped to 30seconds with 15miles to go, Simon Kelly, Brian Keneally(MyHoME.IE) and former IRC member Philip Lavery (Irish National Juniors) broke clear. Their gap never went above 15 secs at this stage with Kelly and Kenneally doing the bulk of the work as Lavery had the diadvantage of restricted Junior gears.
Meanwhile back the road Eurocycles were getting into trouble with mechanical difficulties so the IRC put the pressure on which enabled Delahaye McCann and Griffen to bridge the gap to the chasers. By the 1 km to go and the yellow jersey trying his hardest to catch the three leaders the gap dropped to a mere 4 seconds. But Kelly and Kenneally never gave up and Lavery led the sprint out with Simon Kkelly doing what Conor Murphy did 12months ago and won Stage 4 with the chase group 6 seconds behind. The Irish road Club won the Team Prize.
Congrats to all and thank you on behalf of the club to Andrew Usher for managing and Jenni Nason for looking after the lads so superbly once again.
Neil rides into a fine 3rd overall
Simon wins Stage 4 from Bian Kenneally and Philip Lavery
