Irish Notes 15th August '05.

Tim McNulty heads an impressive top ten for this weekend's ALMC  Stages rally, based at the Lakeside Manor Hotel outside Virginia. There are eight stages on offer, with Adrian McElvaney, Noel Redmond, Tommy Graham and Paddy White, all in Impreza WRC's, as well as Maurice Gass in his Fabia WRC, all in the top line up. Interestingly, James Foley is expected to debut a new GpN Lancer Evo 9 as course car.

Pamela Ballantine, the popular UTV and RPM presenter won herself a bottle of bubbly from the organisers, the North Armagh Motorcycle and Car Club, by co-driving Garry Jennings to GpN victory and 11th overall on last Saturday's Lurgan Park Rally. There were 5 guest media ladies co-driving, and the award was for the one who finished top in the classification. Jennings has now put his Lancer Evo 6 on the market and will drive an Evo 8 on the Ulster.

Gareth McHale and his co-driver Paul Nagle tied up the Southern Forestry Championship last Sunday with victory on the Birr event. Gareth still plans to compete on the final round in Killarney, now backed by WasteWater Solutions. The event is scheduled for Sunday 4th September, the day after the Ulster Rally, but Gareth does not see this as a problem.

The Pirelli Tarmac Championship points table on the run up to the Ulster Rally now show Eugene Donnelly on 69 points, Derek McGarrity on 63 and Tim McNulty with 47. Killarney Lakes winner and former Champion Andrew Nesbitt is well down the list but must be considered favourite on his home patch in his McKinstry Subaru S9.

Dermot Hanafin had high hopes of competing on the Ulster Rally in a Phil Morgan hired Subaru, with Claire Mole co-driving. Insurance difficulties have scuppered this however and left him so frustrated that he plans to start his own competition insurance scheme through his company FitzSamuel.

Fermanagh Motor Club's Clubmans' Rally has managed to find a new date on the 22nd October, thanks to the co-operation of Omagh Motor Club who have postponed their time trial which was to have taken place on that date. All the re-shuffling is to accommodate the 15th & 16th  October Rally Ireland. The Enniskillen Clubmans is a round of the Tracker Championship and C of C Declan Gannon states that he is now moving the emphasis of the event from the forest to tarmac.

Regards

Brian Patterson