Our 2015 road racing season: Kells

Our 2015 season started later than planned. We wanted to go to the Northwest200 in May but at that time Juan was out for work, and I just wished I could have gone as I was stuck at home in rainy Ireland while Juan wished the same but from some Californian beach 😀 .

In June at last we could go to our first road race of the season.

It was in Kells, in Republic of Ireland and it was practical because the race was on Sunday (and practice on Saturday) while all of Northern Ireland are on Saturdays (with practice on Fridays). This gave us time to arrive on Saturday, get to know the area and find the best place to watch the races.

Kells road races are run on a road that goes out of Crossakiel village and makes like a triangle.

We left home on Saturday morning at about 9.00am and after we got lost for a while (the GPS had not charged correctly during the night), we arrived to the hotel where we stayed at about 1.00pm. We had some lunch in the pub restaurant and after leaving our cases in the bedroom, we finally went to the circuit, at about 15km through very narrow and bumpy roads. We found the circuit, parked the bike and went to the first corner from the village. The road was already closed so we couldn’t ride around the circuit anymore.

We stayed in that corner and took pictures of the practice for classics, Supersport, Superbike, 125, Supertwins, etc…

Paul Jordan

Michal Dokoupil

William Dunlop

Juan had a long chat with another fan who told us where to go the next day to take nice pictures, and who also advised us that we had to go to Skerries and Killalane road races (North of Dublin) in July and September respectively.

After the practice we went back to the hotel, had dinner, and the hotel owner advised us to go to a castle 1km away. So there we went. The garden was just amazing, and the castle very nice. That’s funny that it looked much like a Playmobil castle, I don’t know if they got their inspiration from Irish castles…

The night was not so funny though as they started with a concert in the pub below the room at 11pm, just when we decided to sleep, and the music was quite loud and not as we like either… and we couldn’t rest until it stopped at last at 1.30am…

After a short resting night, we left early to have breakfast in Crossakiel (a full Irish Breakfast so that we get to the end of the races without eating) and get to the sighting place early. We left the bike (no organised car park for the bikes) and went to “Dromad Hire” corner, on the other side of the circuit. The bad thing was that there was no food/drink selling point in that field, it was on the next corner, and there was few time between the races to move. So we just stayed there, with our just eaten Irish breakfast, a bottle of water and some cereals bars for Juan…

The races went by, very exciting. We were taking turn to take pictures 😉 . We were very close to the riders, so much that at the beginning I was a little scared. Though we were on the inside part of the corner, so after a while I enjoyed it very much.

William Dunlop

Sam Wilson

Derek Mc Gee

Andy Farrell

Paul Jordan

There was an incident in one of the races that required the doctors, ambulance and then helicopter intervention. The rider, Ian Morrell was swiftly attended and is now safe and recovering from his injuries.

After the break (everything was very well organised, Cheers to all the organisers, marshals and Medical Team who saved his life in the first minutes), the race started again, followed by the rest of them Supertwin, Junior Support (one won by the Czech woman Veronika Hancocyová), Superstock, and Superbike (the “Grand Final”)… It finished at about 4pm.

Traveling Marshal

Traveling Doctor John – RIP

Stephen Morrison

John Ella

Craig Gibson

Sean O’Neil

Alan Bonner

Derek Mc Gee

Parade Lap

Barry Sheehan

Veronika Hancocyova

Paul Jordan

William Dunlop

Michal Dokoupil

Derek Mc Gee

Alan Bonner

Derek Mc Gee & Alan Bonner

After a full racing day, we went back to the village to have lunch/dinner, and then we went back to Cork, some 250km, this time through Dublin (with GPS functioning this time) and we got rain for about 150km…  I think we broke a record of lasting rain (not of intensity though…).

At last we arrived home, wet, tired but happy, and with some 900 pics to sort out…

V’s