Blog
For the second year running we managed to qualify on pole position and just like last year didn’t manage to take the win!!! That usual saying ringing in my ears – To finish first, first you must finish! With a packed 32 car field, staying out of trouble wouldn’t be easy, we proved that!
Here was the line up for our 4 teams-
Murray Motorsport #18- Colin Lewis, Greg Murphy, Seán Doyle, Paul Dagg
Murray Motorsport #19- John Lally, Sean Lally, Barry English, Michael Cullen
Murray Motorsport #30 - Hugh Grennan, David Maguire, John Farrelly, Rod McGovern
Murray Motorsport #32 - Eoin Murray, Niall Murray, John Denning, Michael Devaney
After 2 hours and 47 minutes the race couldn’t have been going better for us. Our 3 teams were sitting 1st (#32), 2nd (#30), 3rd (#18) & 6th (#19). The #18 car had a comfortable gap of one and a half minutes ahead of 4th place team LOH. On lap 129 the race changed dramatically! Car 4 blew their engine and left a few litres of oil at turn 2!
Three of our cars were running nose to tail and when they arrived to T2 Michael, John F & John D had no chance! Their cars took off and either ended up in the barrier and/or colliding with each other! Unfortunately the #32 car had broken suspension and John wasn’t able to move it, he was a sitting duck stuck on the racing line. Take a look at the on-boards-
Luckily John was 100% OK, thankfully HANS and OMP RSPT seat both doing their jobs.
The safety car was dispatched and our teams #30 & #18 dived to the pits along with LOH. Cars were still spinning even behind the safety car, turn 2 was lethal so official’s had to put out the red flags and stop the race. Over half the field spun at some stage on the oil, I’ve never seen a situation like it! A 30 minute delay to clean the track was announced and the remaining field were held on the grid. As everyone was waiting the fog came in and visibility was non existent! My teammate Mick Devaney joked that he could barely see the end of his nose! The officials had no choice but to cancel the event, a decision nobody questioned.
The aftermath left everyone confused, nobody knew who won! When did the red flag come out and if the results went back a lap, had we won!? Or were we deemed the cause of the red flag and if so had our team #30 won? Turns out the race went to lap 129 and with most of the front teams having pitted Team Blackchurch took the win from being 5th on the road a lap earlier! The guys did a great job to come back from a lowly qualifying position with a car that was down on power. Well done again guys!
Last year our #14 car lost the win by just 6 tenths of a second, incredibly close after 6 hours. This year the same bunch of guys driving #30 initially thought they won this year’s race but later dropped to 3rd when the new results were issued. Our #18 Murphy Prototype team did a great job to take second and our #19 team finished 4th. So to come away with 2nd, 3rd & 4th was good but next year we'll be gunning for all three podium spots!!
Once again a really fun event, great job by Mondello and all the officials. We are looking forward to the next one already!
Till next time!
Eoin
(Pictures courtesy of Michael Chester.)
Here was the line up for our 4 teams-
Murray Motorsport #18- Colin Lewis, Greg Murphy, Seán Doyle, Paul Dagg
Murray Motorsport #19- John Lally, Sean Lally, Barry English, Michael Cullen
Murray Motorsport #30 - Hugh Grennan, David Maguire, John Farrelly, Rod McGovern
Murray Motorsport #32 - Eoin Murray, Niall Murray, John Denning, Michael Devaney
After 2 hours and 47 minutes the race couldn’t have been going better for us. Our 3 teams were sitting 1st (#32), 2nd (#30), 3rd (#18) & 6th (#19). The #18 car had a comfortable gap of one and a half minutes ahead of 4th place team LOH. On lap 129 the race changed dramatically! Car 4 blew their engine and left a few litres of oil at turn 2!
Three of our cars were running nose to tail and when they arrived to T2 Michael, John F & John D had no chance! Their cars took off and either ended up in the barrier and/or colliding with each other! Unfortunately the #32 car had broken suspension and John wasn’t able to move it, he was a sitting duck stuck on the racing line. Take a look at the on-boards-
Luckily John was 100% OK, thankfully HANS and OMP RSPT seat both doing their jobs.
The safety car was dispatched and our teams #30 & #18 dived to the pits along with LOH. Cars were still spinning even behind the safety car, turn 2 was lethal so official’s had to put out the red flags and stop the race. Over half the field spun at some stage on the oil, I’ve never seen a situation like it! A 30 minute delay to clean the track was announced and the remaining field were held on the grid. As everyone was waiting the fog came in and visibility was non existent! My teammate Mick Devaney joked that he could barely see the end of his nose! The officials had no choice but to cancel the event, a decision nobody questioned.
The aftermath left everyone confused, nobody knew who won! When did the red flag come out and if the results went back a lap, had we won!? Or were we deemed the cause of the red flag and if so had our team #30 won? Turns out the race went to lap 129 and with most of the front teams having pitted Team Blackchurch took the win from being 5th on the road a lap earlier! The guys did a great job to come back from a lowly qualifying position with a car that was down on power. Well done again guys!
Last year our #14 car lost the win by just 6 tenths of a second, incredibly close after 6 hours. This year the same bunch of guys driving #30 initially thought they won this year’s race but later dropped to 3rd when the new results were issued. Our #18 Murphy Prototype team did a great job to take second and our #19 team finished 4th. So to come away with 2nd, 3rd & 4th was good but next year we'll be gunning for all three podium spots!!
Once again a really fun event, great job by Mondello and all the officials. We are looking forward to the next one already!
Till next time!
Eoin
(Pictures courtesy of Michael Chester.)