For the final outing of the year Davy Morgan Racing headed south for the Inaugural Tullyallen Road Races (Boyne 100). It was hoped that Davy would continue with the form showed at Killalane and finish the season on a high and look to 2007 with some optimism.

The weather was not great come race day and the road was wet as racing began. Davy’s first race was the Open Championship Race and the roads were still quite wet, especially under the trees. So as it is a new circuit things were not rushed on the Investasure Fireblade and Davy got quicker as the race progressed, eventually setting the second fastest lap of the race on the last lap to come home fifth, only a hundredth of a second off fourth.

As the day went on the road continued to dry, but not that quickly. So when it was the turn for the 600cc Supersport machines to head on to the track it was definitely going to be a lottery tyre wise. The wrong tyres were chosen for the Autotech Kawasaki and Davy was a retirement at the end of the sighting lap.

Conditions were still tricky when the riders for the Grand Final set off on their sighting lap. When the flag dropped Davy got a bad start and found himself mired in the pack, by the time he made his way through the traffic, the front three, Finnegan, Cummins & Burrows were gone. This did not deter the Saintfield lorry driver as he closed the gap each lap, setting fastest lap after fastest lap. On the final circuit before the race was stopped he was within a second of the leader, had set a new outright lap record that was two seconds a lap quicker than anyone else, but had to settle for fourth place, when a podium or even a win was a possibility.

Speaking afterwards Davy commented, “It was a good end to the season, but if only the Grand Final had gone its full seven laps I might have had my first Superbike road race win. I was so much faster that the guys in front when the race was stopped two laps short, however they may have been able to lap quicker if I had got past them – who knows. It’s a good confidence boost ahead of the next year”.

“I would like to thank all my sponsors and supporters for sticking by me, when the DMRR thing didn’t work out, especially Kevin & Angela Wood at Investasure, John McKeown from Autotech Rider & Driving School, Granville & Andrew from BLRC, PJ Flynn, Ballygowan Supporters Club and also The Vinyl Touch, EJ Tractors, Walsh Western and all my trade sponsors”.

pic : Joe Connolly - www.bigjoephotos.eu