Team DOLAN Take All Three Wins As BRSCC #FF1600 Visits Kirkistown

Team Dolan secured a hat-trick of wins in round four of the BRSCC Avon Tyres National Championship at Kirkistown to extend Niall Murray’s lead in the championship. Niall won two of the three races while his teammate and current Dawson WAM Northern Irish Championship leader Marr round-Garrido took home the final race victory of the weekend.

Qualifying and races at the famous Northern Ireland track took place on Friday and Saturday.  Niall secured a strong pole for the first of the National races starting later on Friday evening. Matt started his first of five races (as he was competing in both the local and BRSCC races) in eleventh.

Niall led from pole to take an impressive victory in the weekend opener, while Matt drove well in the early stages of the race, technical fault unfortunately ended his race prematurely.

On Saturday morning in race two, Niall got his trademark good start but lost a place in the first lap. Unsurprisingly,  he managed to regain the lead shortly after to take his second race of the weekend. Matt started from nineteenth but charged through the field to finish an impressive seventh.

In the final Formula Ford race, Matt started on the front row with teammate Niall a few rows behind. In the opening stages Matt had to defend from the charging pack to hold onto second. Once the field had started to settle down after the first lap, Matt performed a Nigel Mansell style ‘double shuffle’ move into the hairpin to take the lead of the race. He began to pull away from the field when the safety car was deployed, once the field was released Matt only had to hold position for a handful of laps due to the safety car being deployed for a second time.
In the opening stages of the race, Niall had suffered slight contact but continued to charge forward to fifth before his race was abruptly ended due to a competitor spinning into several cars at the hairpin. Matt took the chequered flag behind the safety to complete Team Dolan’s 3rd win of the weekend.

After the celebrations and tidy up had finished, Bernard had this to say;
“I am extremely pleased with this weekend and how the team have handled a busy schedule, Niall drove extremely well as always and we are very happy he won twice. Matt had a long weekend competing in both the (Dawson WAM) Northern Irish and (BRSCC AVON Tyres) National championship, he kept his nose clean and scored two podiums in the Northern Irish Championship and performed a brilliant move to take the final race of the weekend.”

National Championship Results: Kirkistown
Race 1: Niall Murray 1st / Matt Round – Garrido DNF
Race 2: Niall Murray 1st / Matt Round – Garrido 7th
Race 3: Niall Murray DNF / Matt – Round Garrido 1st

Northern Irish Championship Results
Race 1: Matt Round – Garrido 3rd
Race 2: Matt Round – Garrido 3rd