Irish Notes 30th November 2005

 

Newly crowned Pirelli Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly admitted at the Dublin prizegiving last weekend that he has had second thoughts about committing himself to his Skoda WRC for next season. Eugene commented, "Derek McGeehan, our engineer, was at the Skoda factory for three days last week, and although I really like the car, there are a few things I'm not really happy about as regards the factories' arrangements for looking after customers."

Donnelly continued, "I've been testing suspension developments in the Corolla, plus there is more to come from the engine, and I've been trying different tyres as well, with very positive results. In addition, I've been asked to test '05 cars with Ford and Subaru, so next season is still very open!"

Sligo's Paul Kiely, who co-drives for Donnelly so successfully, missed the Tarmac presentation in favour of the Quinn Border Championship prizegiving. This took place on the same evening but at the Hotel Kilmore in Cavan. Kiely had a class award to collect as a driver in his Peugeot. The overall Border Champions were declared as Adrian Fox/Phillip Tobin from Rockcorry in their Escort. Shane Feely was 2nd o/a, Raymond Conlon 3rd.

Cork '20' winner Tim McNulty was runner up to Donnelly in the Pirelli Tarmac series. Co-driven by Anthony Nestor on that final counter of the 8 round series in Cork, McNulty showed enormous flair and speed through the latter part of the series, which should make him a real threat for outright championship honours next season. McNulty declared that it was not 100% certain that he would stick with his Pierse backed Impreza WRC S10, prepared by Dom Buckley, but it was looking that way and the Tarmac title would be his goal.

Ballinamallard's Garry Jennings and his co-driver Rory Kennedy picked up the GpN Champions Tarmac awards last Saturday night and announced their intention of taking their Lancer to the Grizedale and Galloway Hills events this Saturday and Sunday. Garry is hopeful of at least one WRC outing in 2006, depending very much on the backing being in place.

Ivan Fisher, the late Bertie Fisher's brother, announced at the Tarmac awards evening that The Fisher Foundation driver award for next year will go to 19 year old Conor McCloskey. Conor, from Kilrea in Co. Derry, campaigned an older model GpN Lancer this season and showed good speed, up as high as 3rd Evo challenger on the Jim Clark and 12th o/a on the Circuit of Ireland. Conor has a new Evo 9 being built at David Greer Motorsport and plans to contest the Pirelli Tarmac and the first part of the British series, as three of the rounds are common. The input of the Fisher Foundation award will considerably help Conor's rally development.

Co Armagh's Darren Gass is on the verge of clinching a deal with M-Sport to drive a 'works' Fiesta Super 1600 on selected rounds of next season's Tarmac Championship and also with the possibility of a WRC round. 17 year old Darren is rated as a very accomplished driver. Malcolm Wilson gave him the nod from around 12 other young drivers. Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly is lending his full support to Darren's rally efforts. Darren's father Maurice has had a quiet rally year, but plans to be flat out again in '06, driving either a Skoda WRC or Focus WRC.

British Rally Champion Mark Higgins helped to perform the official opening of a new 'Pitlane' in Cavan last weekend. TyreCall/Tractamotor, who are behind Pitlane, are the official agent for Pirelli competition tyres in Ireland. Prodrive had the new Subaru WRC car on show, before its 'official' world debut at Bologna this week!

Pirelli rally marketing man in Britain, Martin Pallow, represented the company at the Tarmac prizegiving in Dublin's City West Hotel and confirmed that Pirelli will again back the Championship for 2006.

Dr Dessie Nutt has won the Killarney Historic rally 6 times in total, but will miss this weekend's event as he is travelling to the East African Safari. On the 10-day rally, with 500/600 kms per day, he will act as medical adviser and management car driver to the Tuthill team, which includes John Lloyd and Freddy Dor in newly built post-historic Porsche 911's. Dessie, a GP based in Castlerock, commented, "Believe it or not, it was a tough call. I love Killarney and the rally. Plus I really wanted a go at Brookes, as well as Perez. We beat Russell on the Isle of Man a couple of years ago, until the organisers cancelled one of the stages, which meant he won. And I won Killarney 5 times in a row I think, until Perez won a couple of years ago, but then I won again last year!"

The Killarney rally starts this Saturday evening with 2 stages North of Killarney, run in darkness. On the Sunday there are 9 stages through the day, encompassing such classics as Molls Gap, Tim Healy, Ardgroom and Cods Head. The classic section of the rally, an important part of the event, featuring mostly Escort Mk2's, always provides fireworks. One of the favourites will be Kells man Pat Donegan who has a new Mountune engine being fitted for the event, along with a six speed box with sequential change. Donegan's co-driver Jakes Kelly reckons "It is a hard challenging route, it will be a finishers rally." Tralee man Kelly reckoned their chief opposition for victory will include Monaghan's Dessie Keenan, local man Dave Slattery, who has a new engine in his Escort, and Donie O'Sullivan, although there is a question mark over his hired Escort's engine and he may not be starting the event.

Derry's Sean Devine followed up his Glens of Antrim Rally victory by taking his Impreza WRC to a 15 seconds victory over NI GpN Champion Neil McCance on last Saturdays Down Rally in the Mourne Mountains. Snow on the day before rally happily thawed and cleared before the start but left the stages muddy and slippy in places. Devine overshot a hairpin left on the opening Donard stage which left him 15 seconds in arrears of McCance's GpN Lancer, but Devine battled back to win. McCance had a 'guest' co-driver who contributed a lot of money to charity for the seat.

Richard Cathcart made a slow and nervous start to the Down Rally, but again the young man from Fermanagh demonstrated enormous flair to come into 3rd, while Raymond Mason survived a final stage puncture to take 4th. Andy Magee was so busy switching on his on-board camera at the start of the first stage he forgot to switch on his Escort's intercom, and he dropped many seconds as there were no pace notes coming through! He soon made up for it, and finished a splendid 5th overall and won his class. Other class winners included Ian Green (Peugeot), Andrew Straney (Nova), Mark McCrea (Sunbeam), Matt Mitchell (Escort) and Adrian Donnelly (Escort G3). Craig Bennett retired his Focus WRC when he slid off the road in stage 4.

Brian Patterson.