THE longest and most testing stage of the Credit Union Junior Tour yesterday 75 miles from Kanturk to Dungarvan was won in great style by David McQuaid, son of the race organiser Pat McQuaid.

At the finish 17 year old McQuaid, who is riding with the Dublin team, won from Neil Wallbank of England North East with Sean Farrell (Kilcullen) third.

Contrary to expectations, the testing stage, which included the climb at The Vee, did not produce an upheaval in the overall classification and there were no changes at the top. Barry Twohig of the Ireland team still leads by 25 seconds from Belgian Jo Chevalier, whose teammate Kristof Freyne is next at 27 seconds, followed by David O'Loughlin (Ireland), John Mannix (Kerry) and Ross Muir (Scotland).

Scot Martin Lonie broke away at Mitchelstown and had a lead of two minutes at Clogheen before tackling The Vee. But his advantage was being relentlessly reduced all the way up and he just held on at the summit with Chevalier at the head of the main group. Twohig was in fifth place.

Then, with 57 miles covered, Farrell and McQuaid forged ahead and were joined by Wallbank. They built up an advantage of over a minute but, when the fast moving pack went in pursuit towards the end, the advantage of the leaders looked vulnerable.

Outside Dungarvan Farrell dropped back leaving McQuaid and Wallbank to fight out the finish in the rain and McQuaid had the edge. He was in 20th position overall and improved to 18th, 4:27 behind Twohig.

Farrell held onto third place, five seconds adrift and, in the bunch sprint just eight seconds later, Chevalier was best to take an unbeatable lead in the points classification.

This morning there is 47 miles to Cork and the race finishes tomorrow afternoon with 10 laps of a 4.8 miles circuit at Douglas.