Irish
Notes 29th May 2006.
West
Cork man Denis Cronin heads a strong entry on
this weekend’s Adare based Circuit of
Munster Rally. Cronin drives his usual Impreza
WRC and and Helen O’Sullivan will co-drive.
Cronin is the current 023 Tiles Southern Four
Champion and this is the 3rd of this year’s
series. Melvyn Evans was the winner of the
opening round and he is seeded at 2 in his
Impreza WRC, with George Cullen in a similar
Subaru at 3.
Munster
is also a counter in the Top Part West Coast
Championship. Ray Breen heads the points from
Aaron MacHale. Neither driver has entered for
this one which opens the door for third placed
Darragh Raftery in his Impreza WRC.
Ray
Breen is also the current Dunlop National
Championship Champion so it was quite a
surprise when he didn’t take up his entry on
last weekend’s Cavan event. The Waterford
man, just back from a business trip to Chile,
will reportedly be rejoining the National
series on an occasional basis.
In
terms of this season’s Dunlop series,
following Charlie Donnelly’s win last Sunday
in Cavan it is starting to look very much as
if it could be a two horse race for the
outright title between Donnelly (Corolla) and
Patrick Elliott (Impreza WRC). Having said
that, Cavan was only the half-way mark in the
series really, and its not too late for a dark
horse such as Aaron MacHale, who has taken to
the Focus WRC like a duck to water, to come
through strongly. Interestingly Jim Harrison
is reportedly making a comeback in a Kenny
McKinstry Impreza WRC for the Tipperary
Stonethrowers Rally.
Plans
are well advanced for the Monaghan Forestry
event, (11th June), and the club, under the
direction of C of C Damien Hagan, has
been working hard at the stages which are all
somewhat different to last year. The rally is
round 5 of the McCauley Trailer forestry
series and John McCarthy (Corolla WRC)
currently leads the points. Round 6 of the
series, the 22/23rd July Cork Forestry, will
again be a two day affair and moves to a new
base this year, the Commons Inn Hotel on the
Mallow Road.
The
Mayo Motor Club is running the Achill Island
Single Stage Rally on the 11th June. It is
several years since the event has been run,
and the stage is slightly different than
before, but covers approximately the same
fabulous roads. Just some of the top entries
received iclude Martin Taggart (Escort), Shane
Feely (Peugeot), James Cassidy (Escort) and
Thomas O’Rourke (Astra).
Regards,
Brian Patterson.
