Harry Ferguson Road Race - Magheraconluce Road (map)
15 August 2013
The final road race of the season was the Harry Ferguson Cup which starts from the HF memorial gardens on the Magheraconluce Road. The HF gardens have matured even more this year and were in a great condition on this August evening. A link to the gardens website is given here.
Earlier in the day there had been some very heavy rain showers going through. The race was on the point of being cancelled and the club were waiting on the word from the race secretary, Chris Magowan, as to whether it would go on or not. The call was made at 5pm that the race would go ahead. When the riders showed up at 6:30 the rain had passed through and the riders had a dry start to their race. There was a light rain shower during the race which thankfully went away quickly. The timekeepers were provided with a gazebo to protect them and the paperwork from getting wet. With the wet weather during the day there was a lower number of riders turning up to race, just 18. There were 3 groups on the night. Group 1 had 5 riders, Group 2 had 6 and left 2 minutes 15 seconds later, Group 3, the "scratch group" left 3 minutes later and had 7 riders. The riders had 7 laps to complete and by lap 4 the scratch group had caught up to the majority of riders with only Matthew Armstrong staying away until lap 5. In the end it was a sprint between Anthony Quinn and Gavin Magowan with Anthony taking the win and lifting the cup. Nathan Mullan had crashed on lap 5 but luckily had only received some light cuts andbruises.
Well done to all the riders. Many thanks to the time keepers and marshals.
Timekeepers: Colin Roy and Lisa Millar
Marshals :
At the bottom of the hill: Noel and Gary Gibson
At the crossroads: Michael Mullan, John O'Hare (guest), Mike Barton and Paul Gick
At the Magheraconluce Rd crossroads: Marcus Magowan, Conor Rice, David Chambers and Kevin Walker.
Report & photos: Martin Grimley
Photos by Fritz: here
