Armoy Road Races: Mike Browne wins Race of Legends finale for four-timer and joins exclusive club
Mike Browne became only the fourth winner of the Race of Legends at Armoy after completing a four-timer at the final Irish road race of the year.
Browne joins inaugural winner Ryan Farquhar, 10-time victor Michael Dunlop and Davey Todd – who won the headline race in 2022 and 2024 – in an exclusive club.
The Republic of Ireland rider didn’t make the best of starts off the front row and had to make up ground on race leader and pole man Paul Jordan.
Browne passed Marcus Simpson to move into third at the start of the second lap and was already up to second place by the end of lap two, overtaking Michael Sweeney.
Jordan, who opted for an intermediate front tyre on the Jackson Racing Honda on a quickly drying course, was 0.350s ahead of Browne as they began the third lap.
However, his advantage was only a tenth of a second over Browne as they started the fourth lap.
Browne was on a charge on the BPE by Russell Racing Honda and hit the front for the first time in the seven-lap feature race on the fourth lap, immediately putting some daylight between himself and Jordan.
The Cork man held sway by 1.3s after four laps and went on to increase his lead to 3.4s with the fastest lap of the race on the sixth and penultimate lap at 106.898mph – his fastest ever around the three-mile course.
Browne closed out the win – his third on the day and fourth in total after a Supersport success on Friday – by 4.313s over Jordan.
Sweeney finished third, over five seconds further behind on the MJR BMW, narrowly ahead of Conor Cummins (Burrows Engineering/RK Racing BMW) by a few tenths of a second.
Jamie Coward came home fourth on the KTS Racing BMW while Phil Crowe was sixth on his BMW.
Marcus Simpson was seventh on the WH Racing by Dynobike Honda ahead of newcomers Kevin Keyes (Daracore Racing Honda) and Erno Kostamo (RVS Motorsport BMW).