Two Kerry motorcycle racers heading to the Isle of Man this week will have a busy schedule for two very different reasons.
Tralee-based motorcycle racer Darragh Crean will make his Isle of Man this week at the Southern 100 road races. He will be joined by Anthony O’Carroll who is on his second visit to the event.
They arrived on the Isle of Man on Sunday ahead of practice and qualifying on Monday and Tuesday evening.
Depending on qualifying both should race in the 600cc race on evening – this is Crean’s first time racing a 600cc machine.
The main races take place on Thursday with both Kerry riders hopeful of more 600cc action and at least one Lightweight (SuperTwin) race on the final day.
O’Carroll is also using the opportunity to get in some sighting laps over the famous TT course ahead his Manx Grand Prix debut next month.
On Friday both riders rush back to Ireland for two different events.
Crean is racing in the Ulster Superbike Championship meeting in Bishopscourt on Saturday and Sunday. He will be joined by other Kerry riders in this event including Robert O’Connell, Stephen Walsh and Emett O’Grady.
O’Carroll will make his way home to Kerry where he will compete in the Brian O’Neill Garden Equipment and Trailers Ballyfinnane Festival of Speed at the wheel of his father Neilus’s Ford Escort G3 Rally car.
He will also display his two Isle of Man bikes at the festival.
Kerry’s oldest stills surviving motor vehicle, a 1904 Quadrant motorcycle sporting the registration plate IN-22 will also go on static display at the same venue.
“As a long-time motoring historian with a particular interest in Kerry-registered vehicles, I have always been curious to find out what the earliest Kerry registration still in existence might be. Something I thought would be impossible to actually pin down but as of this month that question may be answered,” said Dave Curran who met the Quadrant’s owner recently.
“Due to the large and wide-ranging interest in the Festival of Speed a Kerry Motor Club member was talking to a friend of his about it and that man mentioned he had a really old motorcycle in his shed that he was restoring from around the era of the [original] hillclimb. Turns out it is a 1904 Quadrant 2hp motorcycle, carrying the registration IN-22, being first registered on May 5, 1904.”
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Kerry Motorsport News 