Breathtaking performance from James steals the show

He claimed top spot with a minute to spare after recording at time of 22:40 in the 10 mile TT on Dromore’s Lurgan Road.

That has to be one of the fastest TT times on the Lurgan Road course on a standard road bike.

It’s a time you would be proud of on the Castlewellan Road or the Rathfriland Road courses but on this hard course it is absolutely breath taking.

Regarded as one of the very hardest courses on the Banbridge CC calendar, the riders are subject to the ascent of Clougher Hill after six miles of hard racing. In glorious sunshine 20 club members signed on for the Quinn Cup with six guest riders.

Paul Anderson was away first, closely followed by young Scott Henderson who rolled home with a great 27:46. Malcolm Jenkins kept things speeding up with a 27:19.

Gareth Rodgers was back out to see how his training was improving, and it definitely was with a great 26:00 averaging over 23mph on this rolling course.

Marty Fitzpatrick was back out to see if he could smash his PB again, and with great form he did; smashing another 50 seconds off his time from a fortnight ago. He didn’t even need to use his ready-made ‘back pain’ excuse after performing the worm at the Carrickdale over the weekend!

Wayne Graham matched Marty’s time of 25:46 but Nathan Sturrock is starting to hit good form and he beat the two men by just a second.

As always, ‘The Machine’ Mark Stewart, who doesn’t know how to ride easy, got an excellent time of 25:29, but Kevin McAlinden is coming back to previous form and got the better of Mark with a 25:18. Mark Kendall appears to be in the form of his life hitting a 25:08. This A3 racing is definitely making this man shift!

It came down to two riders in the end; James Curry and John Buller, both young men regularly riding out of their skin.

John was not going to be easy to beat, even after his brilliant third place in the Groucho’s GP at the weekend in horrible conditions but his excellent 23:41 could only manage second place.

Lindsay Watson was the fastest of the guests, recording 23:06.