O’Hara has memorable motorsport weekend

Dunlop Young Racing Driver of the Year, Kevin O’ Hara, has had a weekend in Irish Motorsport he will not forget for a long time, claiming the annual “Martin Donnelly Senior Trophy” motor race title, which takes place at Kirkistown in County Down.

This trophy is presented by the Donnelly family in memory of the late Martin senior who was very well known in motorsport world-wide.

Kevin, driving his Motorsport Ireland Van Diemen RF01, supported by Dunlop and the Irish Sports Council, started off his weekend in testing on Friday last by setting fastest time in his class. On Saturday morning in Qualifying for Heat 1 he set fastest time again and broke the existing Formula Ford 1600 lap record which put him on pole position for Heat 1.

Kevin took up his pole position grid slot and made a good start, but by turn 1 he fell back into the charging pack. Kevin was not long about shaking them off though and drove away to a great win.

The format for this event is two Heats and a Final with both winners from each heat taking up front row slots with the quickest race time from the heat gaining pole position for the Final .

This resulted in Kevin taking up the outside slot on the front row for the Final which was a 22 minute race around this high speed venue.

Now, with a field of 30 Formula Ford 1600 racing cars made up of young racing drivers from both sides of the border we were in for a mighty race. Kevin made a good start and found himself in third position by turn 1, but he was not long about coming to the front of the field and by half distance the lead had changed no less than four times.

Kevin did not give up the battle and with five laps remaining he took the lead again and drove away to a very popular win.

This was a terrific result for the Dunlop Young Racing Driver of the Year who has had some bad luck in this his first year in a most competitive class.

When it came to the podium presentation of the Martin Donnelly Senior Trophy, which Kevin was only too glad to accept, he got another surprise; the Kirkistown 500 Motor Racing Club had voted him the winner of the “Driver of the Day” award.

And to cap it all, he has received an invitation from Greg Murphy Motorsport to join their European Le Mans Series team for a weekend at any one of their events in the future. http://murphyprototypes.com/racing/html/index.html

Greg Murphy had provided this bonus award to the 500 Motor Racing Club for the winner of the FF 1600 final.

Great praise should go to the Bernard Dolan Racing team for all their efforts and hard work for this season so far. We now prepare for the next challenge ahead which will be the world famous Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch on 26/27 October.

http://www.brandshatch.co.uk/calendar/2013/october/formula-ford.aspx