Irish
Notes 26th June 06
North
Armagh Motorcycle & Car Club is running the
annual Single Venue rally at
Loughgall
Country
Park
this Saturday. Last year’s winner Camillus Bradley
will head the field away at 9.30 am and the entrance
cost is £5.00 with children under 16 admitted free.
Other leading competitors in the Rainbow
Communications backed event include Alistair
Cochrane at 2, Wesley Patterson at 3 and former
event winner Brian Armstrong at 4 all in Mk2
Escorts.
Former
ALMC Rally Clerk of the Course John Carroll has
stepped back into his previous title role for this
year’s August 6th event. Incumbent COC
Ian O’Flynn has unfortunately had to step down
from the post he has held for some time due to
illness. Carroll reports the event to be progressing
well and will once again be based at the Lakeside
Manor Hotel, Virginia and will consist of 3 stages
done 3 times with a total stage mileage of 73 Miles.
We would like to convey our best wishes to Ian and
wish him a safe and speedy recovery.
Following
last week’s Shell Donegal Rally, Pirelli Tarmac
Championship co-ordinator Don Wilmot confirmed that
Eugene Donnelly leads the series on 50 points from
Eamonn Boland in 2nd on 41 points. This pair is
followed by Derek McGarritty in 3rd with
30 points and Tim McNulty and Austin McHale both on
22 points.
The
battle for GpN Pirelli tarmac points is a much
closer affair with Colm Murphy and Seamus Leonard
both tied at the top on 35 points, with Murphy
holding the upper hand as he won the opening round.
Roy White lies third only 2 points behind in the
FESP Lancer. All the leading tarmac GpN runners are
planning to make the trip to
Scotland
for the Jim Clark where of course they will meet the
GpN control fuel BRC contenders.
Omagh’s
Paul Barrett is currently undecided about making the
trip to next week’s Quinton Rally where he and
co-driver Dermot Colgan currently lie 3rd
in the BTRDA Silver Star championship. The Escort G3
driver has been a revelation on his first trip to
the mainland championship and has notched up 4
maximum scores out of 6 so far. Barrett though was
admitted to hospital last week after feeling unwell
following the Donegal rally where he retired from
the event after a backward spin up a bank. Further
inspection showed that he had fractured a bone in
his back and a decision about the Quinton will be
made later this week.
Ulster
Television presenter Pamela Ballantine will be
co-driving for Trevor Moore on the 12th
August Turkington Lurgan Park Rally.
Trevor Moore is one of the most exciting
drivers in
Northern Ireland
and has won several National events outright in his
Mk2 Escort and should give rally enthusiast Pamela
an exciting ride.
Brian/Michael
Patterson
