IVCA Track Masters 19/20 September
500m TT
Plenty of Sundrive riders competing in the Track Masters with Ned Costello competing in the 40-49, while Terry, Hugh & Alec competed in the 50-59 category. Terry took the gold in the 500m TT (his speciality event) and it is worthy of note that Terry's winning time is just two hundreds of a second outsite what the National Senior Record was last year, but as we can now see vets times over this distance are right up there with the best in the world in their age category. Alec Darrragh won his his first track medal in 30 years when he took the bronze in the same event. Alec won the track league as a lad and has the photos to prove it! All Sundrive riders (apart from Ned) dodged the pursuit. All saving themselves for the sprinting on Day 2.
Sprint
In the Flying 200 (which qualifys you for the Sprint) ,Terry Cromer was half a second faster than his nearest rival and this can translate into a comfortable margin on the track. He met clubmate Hugh Byrne enroute who stuck him to the fence as best he could (delaying the inevitable!)Terry was always in control right up to the final, while his final opponent Terry Ferris had the trickier patch is taking out the experienced Aidan Ryan 2-1 . The final was a close run affair but Terry's extra track experience at this event converted into a win over the accomplished road sprinter. The scratch race saw some good attacking and Hugh countered an early moved and got some yards on the bunch to a few laps before being brough back. Terry took the silver in this one behing Terry Ferris.
Team Sprint 135+
After the success of last years event the Team Sprint is now not only a National Championship but is part of the Masters format as for a team with a total age of over 135. This year saw a rule change that allowed one member to be a non vet over 35 to be part of the team. The Bronze team (Paddy Davis, Eddie Dunne and Hugh Davis) all drawn from the 60+ age category so it shows that age is not a drawback in sprinting. Silver was won by Aidan Ryan, Ger Ivory and Paul Swenarton. The Gold was won with a new Veterans National Best Time by the very strong team of 500TT heavyweights Terry Cromer, Liam Collins and Brendan Whelan. Their time of 50.82 compares favourably against the National Championship particularly when all riders had at least 8 races in their legs before the event.