IRISH NOTES 14^TH AUGUST 06

 

The Forestry Championship spotlight switches to Roscrea for this weekend’s Birr Forestry. This is the 7^th of 8 rounds and number 1 seed John McCarthy in his Corolla WRC could wrap up the championship this weekend.  However, all the championship regulars including Kevin O’Kane, James Murphy and Dominic McNeill are amongst the top entries which will not make McCarthy’s job any easier.  Brian McGillin, Brian Lawlor and Peter Kavanagh are amongst the top entries for the 6 stage event.

 

Early news on the 9^th/10^th September Wexford Rally is that Eamonn Boland, Melvyn Evans, Kevin Barrett, David James and Noel Redmond have all entered in their WRC machines. The Rally is a round of the Mark 2 Escort Challenge and Gwyndaf Evans has entered.

 

Glenn Allen retired his Corolla WRC from last weekend’s Lurgan Park Rally and then did 00 duties in Maurice Gass’ Skoda Fabia.  Allen was very impressed with the Skoda, finding the acceleration and braking a revelation and didn’t rule out the possibility of trying to get his hands on one for next season. 

 

Following his dramatic Junior category victory on last week’s Rally Germany Kris Meeke is fine form for this weekend’s Rally Finland and is also looking forward to his home event, the Ulster Rally.  It is ironic that the young Dungannon man hasn’t competed on a serious rally for months and new he has 3 major events in 4 weeks. One of his backers for the Ulster is Charles Hurst’s and they plan to have Citroen C2 on show on the Wednesday night before the Ulster .  Kris will be present and also giving some demonstration drives.

 

Cookstown MC is running the Lafarge Cement backed stage rally this weekend through the tarmac drives of Davagh forest and also Loughrey College . Paul McKenna is the top seed but hasn’t yet specified which car he will drive, while Davagh expert Camillus Bradley is at No.2 and former Billy Coleman Award winner Stuart Darcy is at 3 in an Impreza. Shaun Reid and Dermot McGrady are at 4 and 5 in Lancers while Trevor Bustard rounds off the top 6 in his Impreza. 

 

Diarmuid Falvey was listed to co-drive for Noel Redmond on last weekend’s Stonethrowers, but Tralee man Diarmuid was still pretty shook up following his accident with Derek McGarrity on the Manx. Diarmuid does however hope to get back to work later this week and reports that Derek is still struggling a bit, not sleeping and suffering somewhat from the broken arm and shoulder, but at the same time starting to sound a bit like the old Derek.

 

The NE Mini Stages, rescheduled for the 17^th September, are holding an open night, with cars on show, on Sunday 20^th, at the Carrick Court Hotel in Carrickmacross.

 

Jason Ryan, co driven by Tadgh O’Sullivan took his Civic to a clear victory over Paddy O’Dwyer/David Byrne (Nova) on the Junior section of last weekend’s Tipperary Stonethrowers Rally.  Patrick Cunningham/Andreena Fahy were 3^rd in their Civic.

 

Provisional Dunlop Championship standings after the Stonethrowers show Patrick Elliott on 128 points against Charlie Donnelly with 114 and Aaron MacHale 84.  Alan Ring is 4^th overall and leads group N with 69 points, 17 ahead of Willie Fannin.

 

 

Brian Patterson.