Emmet O’Grady’s first Superbike win

Tralee racer Emmet O’Grady won his first ever Dunlop Masters Superbike Championship race on Sunday.  

The Honda CBR 1000 rider was contesting the third weekend of the national championships at Mondello Park at the weekend.  

After finishing fourth in Saturday’s opening race O’Grady was determined to make up lost ground over Sunday’s two races.  

“The lads just pulled off and it was kind of a lonely ride around,” he admitted.  

Dubliner Derek Shiels, fresh from racing at the Isle of Man TT earlier in the month, won the first two races of the weekend.  

Shiels won again on Sunday morning, with his Tralee rival in third place.  

Sunday’s third and final race was run in very wet conditions and O’Grady and Shiels got into an early battle at the head of the field.  

However, BMW 1000RR rider Shiels high-sided on the exit to turn four.  

“We both went into turn four very hard, both bikes were moving side-by-side, Derek just left go grip and high-sided,” he said. “That left me with a ten-second advantage and with three laps to go it started raining again, so I just brought it home safely.  

It was O’Grady’s first win in the ‘big bike’ class and the result moves O’Grady into third place in the Dunlop Irish Superbike Championship standings.  

O’Grady also won one of his three Supersport Races on his Harris Group Yamaha R6 and he leads this class category after nine championship rounds. Ballyduff’s Jack O’Grady took a Supersport Cup race win and is now in third place in overall Supersport and second in the Cup championship standings.  

Aprilia rider Darragh Crean took three second-place finishes moving into the second place in the SuperTwins class championship while Andrew Murphy finished second in all three of his Moto 400 races  

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