Following his victory on last weekend's William Loughman Memorial Rally, opening round of the McCauley's Trailer Forestry Championship, 24 year old Gareth McHale is in a real quandary. He wants to contest the series, and there are bonus points for starting every round, but the next event, the Tipperary Mitchelstown, clashes with the Circuit of Ireland, for which he is entered.

Gareth remarked about his victory on the William Loughman, "I kept it as neat and tidy as possible, within my limits, and there's a bit more to come. The problem now is that I've always wanted to do the Circuit, and to do it in a WRC car will be brilliant, but I also want to do the forestry championship. We will make the decision next week."

There were three Corolla WRC's entered for the William Loughman. The McHale example, John McCarthy's and Denis Heaney's. This latter one was the car Mika Hakkinen drove on the Arctic Rally. Heaney has brought it back to Derry and Derek McGeehan, Eugene Donnelly's man on the spanners, has converted it to RHD.

In a parallel situation to Gareth McHale's, Kevin Lynch was also faced with a difficult decision over the Circuit of Ireland. Kevin, the current NI Champion, wanted to do the Easter Stages part of the Circuit, to try and score points in the NI Championship. This would however have precluded him from doing the main Circuit of Ireland. Having now won the first two NI rounds, Kirkistown and Bishopscourt, Kevin has opted to miss the Easter Stages and compete on the main Circuit.

Former winner Bob Fowden returns to the West Cork Rally again this year and is seeded at 7 in an Impreza WRC for the Clonakilty based St Patrick's weekend event. Donie O'Sullivan, Derek McGarrity, Liam McCarthy, Denis Cronin, Donal O'Donovan and JJ Fleming are the top six seeds.

Former Tarmac Champion and Circuit of Ireland winner Andrew Nesbitt has put in an entry for this year's Easter Classic. Nesbitt, who has James O'Brien down as co-driver, but no car nominated, is provisionally seeded in the top six, along with Tarmac Championship regulars Derek McGarrity, Eugene Donnelly, Austin McHale, Eamonn Boland and Peadar Hurson. Interestingly there does not appear to be an entry from Jonny Milner, who was partly backed by Pirelli on the opening round in Galway. Traditionally, Nesbitt has had strong links with the tyre giant.

Sarah Moynihan was co-driven by her sister Amy to a very impressive class win on the recent Laois stages rally in her Micra. Sarah, who is just 20 years old and helps out in the family 'EARS' tyre business, was fastest in her class on every stage except one when she stopped to help another competitor who had had an accident.

Frank O'Mahony, to be co-driven by RTE sports commentator Michael Lyster, is returning to stage action on the Circuit of Ireland where he will drive an Impreza WRC in a major drive to raise funds for the Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.

Brian Patterson.