MOTOR SPORT: The torrential downpours and mud that spoiled so many events this summer failed to damped the spirits of the large crowds who enjoyed two days of absolutely great motor racing this weekend at Phoenix Park - arguably the best in the Park for many years, reports Brian Foley.
Ken Fildes, who first raced in the Park 35 years ago, won Saturday's Formula Libre race from the closely matched Sylvie Mullins and Enda Byrne, with Eamon Matheson fourth in his amazing, home-built Ninja, powered by a turbocharged 1.4 litre Suzuki Hyabusa motorbike engine.
Fildes was on pole for yesterday's second Formula Libre race alongside Matheson, who established an early lead and proceeded to pull away from Fildes in his Ralt RT4. From the second-last row of the grid Simon McKinley slashed through the field to take the lead with two laps to go. Accelerating out of the last corner McKinley had a lurid slid but held it together to take the chequered flag in his Lant RT2, well in front of Matheson and Fildes.
The two Crossle 50th anniversary races were appropriately won by Arnie Black, who bought the Crossle car Company from John and Rosemary Crossle in 1997. David Parks and Anton Savage won Formula Sheane races, just two of several worthy winners in a packed programme.
O'Rourke shows form at right time
Things are at last moving in the right direction for Derval O'Rourke ahead of the World Championships in Osaka, which start on Saturday week, reports Ian O'Riordan.
In her final tune-up over the 100-metre hurdles, O'Rourke yesterday ran 12.88 seconds - her fastest time of the season - in Bochum, Germany.
It was exactly the sort of time she was looking for ahead of Osaka, similar to what she ran in the same meeting last year ahead of her 12.72-second Irish record - and silver medal - at the European championships in Gothenburg.
It was good enough for second place, the victory going to the American Dawn Harper, who clocked an impressive 12.67.
The Corkwoman had also run 13.05 in her qualifying heat just 50 minutes earlier, losing out there to another American, Kellie Wells, but she got the better of Wells in the final.
It was a timely improvement for O'Rourke on the 12.95 she ran in Belgium last month.
Elsewhere, there were two Irish runners on the track yesterday at the World University Games in Bangkok, Wicklow's Deirdre Byrne and Limerick's Orla Drumm taking eighth and 10th respectively over 1,500 metres.
Rain delayed the race, in which Byrne clocked a highly respectable 4:16.58 and Drumm finished in 4:22.78.
Gales force start to be delayed
Forecast winds of up to 50 knots forced organisers of the biennial Rolex Fastnet Race to postpone the start by 25 hours for the first time since the 608-mile course was first sailed in 1925, reports David Branigan.
The Royal Ocean Racing Club took the decision to delay the first of the class starts until 11am today, when the 300 entries start off Cowes and race west along the Solent to Land's End before the turn towards the West Cork coastline and the famous lighthouse.
It is this stretch of the course that has caused the concern: had the fleet started on schedule on Saturday and the forecast winds hit, the smallest entries would be highly exposed to the storm.
With the delay, should conditions worsen tonight and tomorrow then the majority of the fleet would be within 20 miles of haven along the south coast of England in ports such as Falmouth or the finishing-line venue at Plymouth.
Although the bulk of the fleet comprise club entries where the eventual handicap winners may be, this event is used by a variety of exotic classes, such as the fleet of Open 60-footers preparing for November's start to the Barcelona World Race, a two-handed non-stop circumnavigation that includes Ireland's Damian Foxall competing with Jean-Pierre Dick.
