Irish Notes 21st November 2005.

Waterford's Ray Breen collected the Cecil Vard Trophy for winning the 2005 Dunlop National Championship last Saturday night at a glittering awards ceremony in Dublin's City West Hotel. Breen and his co-driver Andrew Purcell announced their intention to pursue the Dunlop title again next season in their Focus WRC. Breen commented about his title win, "It was stiff competition, but it turned out a fabulous year. Just shows, with enough effort and hard work, you'll get there. Any big problems with the Focus, Tom Gahan my engineer, made it a small problem."

Charlie Donnelly had  mishaps during the season on his way to 2nd overall in the Dunlop Championship, but demonstrated that he could produce the required speed out of his Corolla WRC. When quizzed on next year, Charlie was adamant that his first priority is to make sure his Tarmac Champion brother Eugene is sorted out as regards his programme and sponsorship, and only then, "If there is any budget left over, will I tackle the Championship, probably in the Corolla. I'd really love to be doing it, but Eugene comes first."

Kevin Barrett, who was 3rd in the Dunlop National Championship title hunt, intends pursuing a different programme in 2006. Kevin, who will run in parallel with Jim Harrison, both their Impreza WRC S9's prepared by Kenny McKinstry, intends to tackle selected rounds of the Dunlop series, plus a few of the Pirelli Tarmac events, along with Rally Ireland, and possibly two World Championship events.

Michael Curran from Bangor in Co. Down along with his co-driver Fabian McShane from Donegal collected the Patterson RallyNews award for winning GpN. 25 year old Michael, who works in the family haulage business turned in a stunning GpN performance during the year. Regarding next season, Michael commented, "We'll almost certainly do the National Championship again, but I'm not sure which car. We have a Lancer 8.5 ready to go, but would like to try a WRC car as well. We wouldn't mind doing a few Tarmac Championship events as well, but the trouble with those is they require too much time off work for me."

Richard Warbrick, MD of Goodyear/Dunlop Ireland, speaking at the prize presentation last weekend, did not quite commit Dunlop to backing the National Championship in 2006. Warbrick feels that one of the ten constituent rallies, which are earmarked to make up the series in 2006, does not endorse the championship or its sponsor. Warbrick feels therefore that there is no sense in continuing, unless that particular situation is resolved. However, if that particular hurdle is overcome, Warbrick pledged to lend his authority behind further raising the profile of this premier championship.

Well known competitors Patrick Elliott and Kevin Barrett who are now members of the Dunlop Championship committee, handed over a cheque for 16,000 euros on behalf of the Championship to the Motorsport Ireland benevolent fund last Saturday night.  The raffle at the prizegiving raised a further 4000 Euro.

Arthur and Roger McMahon confirmed at the start of this week that Donegal Oil would again back their home counter of the Pirelli Tarmac Championship. The Letterkenny based event, scheduled to run over the weekend of 16/17/18 June will continue to be known as the Shell Donegal International Rally.

Peter Wilson was runner up on last year's Billy Coleman award scheme, and this year won his class on the Pirelli Tarmac Championship, even with one round remaining. 22 year old Peter, a mechanic from Meath, who has a great personality and is recognised as a brilliant driver, then hired Stuart Darcy's GpN Lancer for the final round down in Cork. He endured a couple of mishaps there, as well as setting times within a few seconds of Garry Jennings. He then went on to take 4th overall on the Castle Stage Rally. Wilson has again submitted a request to be considered for selection for the Coleman award, with interviews to be held this week. There are some very talented young drivers indeed entered this time, including forestry champion Gareth MacHale, British and Irish Super 1600 champion Brian O'Mahony, and West Cork GpN winner Kevin Kelleher.

Norman Armstrong showed a clean pair of heels to his young nephew Brian when he brought his Escort Mk2 home 33 seconds ahead after the eight stages of the Gullion Rally last Saturday. In dry, cold but slippy conditions, Martin Teggart brought his Escort into 3rd, just ahead of another of the Armstrong clan, Steven, in 4th.

On the Baltinglass based GSMC stage event last Sunday, run over classic stages on the edge of the Wicklow Hills, Dunmanway's Donal O'Donovan clicked back into form when he brought his Celica into first place 25 seconds ahead of Kevin Kelleher (Lancer). Kieran O'Callaghan was 3rd in his Lancer, to make it a West Cork top three.   Conditions were dry but the roads were very greasy and early leader and last year's winner James Stafford crashed his Nova out on the final stage.

This Saturday's inaugural McGrady Insurance backed Down Rally has a strong line up, with Sean Devine at 1 in his Impreza WRC, Craig Bennett at 2 in his Focus WRC, new NI GpN Champion Neil McCance at 3 and former Scottish GpN Champion Raymond Mason at 4.

Brian Patterson.