Derek Sheils added to his recent wins in the Irish road racing championship with two wins at the Faugheen 50 road races, bringing his tally to seven Superbike race victories on the trot.
After dominating Saturday’s qualifying sessions with four pole positions for Sunday’s races, Mullingar’s Derek McGee had to be the favourite to bag the wins on race day.
Sheils opened his account in the Open Race with an epic battle between him, McGee and Michael Sweeney. With hardly a bike length splitting the leading trio, it was all to play for going into the final lap but it was Sheils on his BE/RK Racing Suzuki GSXR that who took the flag 0.05 seconds ahead of Mcgee with Sweeney a tenth of a second behind in third. Mike Browne was fourth and almost 8.5 seconds behind the leaders and Thomas Maxwell completing the top five.
Sheils followed this win up with another in the Grand Final. This was another scintillating showdown which had the crowd on the edge of their seats between. McGee and Sheils both held the lead which changed several times throughout the six lap encounter around the 2.2 mile Co Tipperary circuit.
At The flag it was race one winner Sheils who came out on top this time winning by 0.3 seconds ahead of the NJ Doyne Kawasaki of McGees and Sweeney on his Martin Jones BMW again bagging the final step on the podium.
James Chawke finished in fourth some 18 seconds behind the leaders and Darryl Tweed fifth a further four seconds in arrears.
McGee faired better in the Supersport race taking the win just under a second ahead of Mike Browne, Sweeney finishing in third yet again. Sheils retired early on the race with a mechanical issue.
McGee also won the Moto3/125 GP race in dominant fashion. Starting in pole position, he led the whole race taking the flag more than 13 seconds ahead of Melissa Kennedy with her brother Wayne nabbing third from his fellow Joey’s Bar Honda rider Gary Dunlop.
Sweeney made the most of the retirement of McGee in the Supertwin race with a win 6.785 seconds ahead of Chawke in second and Tweed 30 seconds further back in third.
Dermot Cleary won the Senior Support Championship race ahead Tommy Henry.
Vinny Brennan won the Junior Support race.
Richard Ford and Ed Manly both had wins in the Classic races.
