Paul O’Brien Extends Irish Legends Championship Lead With Performance At Anglesey

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Paul O’Brien Extends Irish Legends Championship Lead With Performance at Anglesey

Paul O’Brien extended his lead atop of the Irish Legends Championship at Anglesey, based predominantly on a great Saturday showing, as the Irish racers proved more than a match for their Scottish counterparts over the course of the weekend.

The opening race on Saturday was feisty with series returnee James Holman embroiled in a race long battle with Scottish runner Jordan Hodgson for 2nd, with Geoff Richardson and O’Brien pushing hard behind. Holman had lost 2nd gear, and this proved decisive in battle as first he couldn’t find a way past Hodgson, then O’Brien sneaked past with only 2 laps left. The final result for the Irish Championship was O’Brien from Holman and Richardson. Johnny Taylor was 4th, just missing out for an overall top 10 by 1/10th of a sec! Greg Richardson was an unlucky man in the opener his race coming to an end after 7 laps.

Race 2 was the complete opposite of race 1, O’Brien dominated and went onto win the race by nearly 10 seconds, with Geoff Richardson a further 6 seconds clear of his nearest challenger – defending Scottish Champion John Paterson. A crushing win for the Irish boys in this one! Taylor was an excellent 7th overall and 3rd in class, only a couple of spots ahead of Greg Richardson who shook off his race 1 disappointment by claiming 9th overall. Holman didn’t make the start line after undertaking an engine change from his gearbox problem.

The final turned into a race dominated by the Irish runners O’Brien and Holman; Holman who started 9th, took the lead on lap 6 from Ivor Greenwood who was running in the Scottish Championship this weekend. Meanwhile O’Brien, who had started at the back on the 10th row, worked his way through quickly, and by lap 8 had got into 2nd. He then hunted Holman down and ultimately went on to take a last to first victory. Holman tried to hang on in vein, but the pair had demolished the opposition, finishing 8 seconds clear of everyone else. Taylor took a 3rd in class once again, this time finishing 12th, whilst the Richardson brothers both had misfortune and both had DNF’s.

Sunday brought wet weather, with it raining on and off throughout the day, thus never allowing the track to dry at any stage.

Race 1 began with a bang – literally, as the slippy conditions caught out several runners causing a melee. One causualty was O’Brien, who incurred a fair bit of damage, although he was fortunate to be able to carry on and came home 10th – which would become 9th later and 2nd amongst Irish runners. Holman however, starting from 15th, picked his way through the order, and ultimately would finish 3rd overall and 1st Irish runner, however he was disqualified for a safety non-conformity. So taking the win was Geoff Richardson, who finished a solid 5th overall, whilst Taylor was 11th and 3rd Irish car across the line. Greg once again hit problems and didn’t finish.

Race 2 was a slightly more straight forward race, O’Brien and Geoff worked their way through the pack and by the flag they finished 2nd and 3rd overall respectively. Greg had a solid race to finish 9th and 3rd Irish runner, whilst Taylor who was running strongly in behind O’Brien had a spin with two laps left and incurred a lot of damage which would rule him out of the final race, but limped home 19th. Behind him was Holman who had a wild 5th gear spin after being spat out of the bump draft, and despite collecting it then had a misfire which required a trip to the pits to sort out.

The final quickly turned into a race dominated by Geoff, who quickly stamped authority by getting into the lead on lap 1 and kept building the lead lap on lap. Holman worked his way through a little slower and reached 2nd on lap 2, but he couldn’t match Geoff until the last lap where he set fastest lap. O’Brien finished 4th to make in 3 Irish cars in the top 4. Greg had another solid run to 9th as his day improved, hopefully with his bad luck now firmly behind him.

Overall Results for Round 2 : 

Paul O’Brien

Johnny Taylor

James Holman

Overall Results for Round 3 :

Geoff Richardson

Paul O’Brien

James Holman

Championship Positions after Round 3 :

Paul O’Brien

Geoff Richardson

Johnny Taylor

Greg Richardson

James Holman

Ian Conroy

Gordon Brown

Colm O’Sullivan

Niki Meredith

Ruari O’Dowd

Richard Kearney

Ivor Greenwood

The next round takes place at Mondello Park of July 7th and 8th. Keep up to date with all information on our Facebook page (Irish Legends) and on Twitter @IrishLegends.

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