Irish
Notes – 6th Nov. ’06
The
TROA has decided not to implement the decision
to award the GpN winner the same points as the
overall event victor on next year’s Tarmac
Championship rallies. The points scoring system
therefore on the seven rounds will remain the
same as this year’s Pirelli backed series.
Next
weekend’s Bio-Tech/Banna Beach Hotel Kerry
Mini Stages Rally has attracted an interesting
entry, with Monaghan’s Adrian McElvaney in his
Impreza, Thomas Fitzmaurice in the Escort
Cosworth with which he finished so well in
the Fastnet, Brian O’Mahony in his
father Frank’s Metro 6R4 and Johnny
O’Sullivan in his Escort WRC just some of the
top seeds. John Kearney in his Escort will start
at 1 in deference to his win last year.
The
Kerry Mini Stages is the final round of the Top
Part West Coast Rally Championship. Aaron
MacHale has the overall title won. The runner up
spot will be decided in Kerry, between Tadgh
Linenhan, one of the event sponsors, and
Clonakilty’s Kevin Kelleher, GpN Impreza and
Lancer respectively. James Cullen is just one of
the drivers who could steal the GpN thunder.
Gwyndaf
Evans, former Ulster Rally winner and British
Rally Champion, is making the trip to Ulster to
compete on the ‘Rally of the 1000 Entries’
at Kirkistown on Saturday 30th December. The
Welshman will almost certainly drive a Derrick
Jobb Lancer Evo 9, although an Impreza WRC
isn’t ruled out. Chris Patterson is down to
co-drive, although the co-driving seat may be up
for auction. The whole idea of the rally is to
raise funds for the Christopher Rogers trip to
China for treatment regarding his paralysis
following his Monaghan Rally accident. The
Monaghan Motor Club has made a terrific
fundraising effort, producing 19,000 euros from
their quarrycross efforts.
Enniskillen’s
Declan Magee, with Thomas Nugent co-driving, had
a great run on the recent Bulldog Rally to
finish 1st 2WD in his 206, which was enough to
clinch this year’s Peugeot SuperCup series.
Declan is going to build one of the new Citroen
C2 R2’s for next year. A previous success for
Declan was winning the 1400 Peugeot 206
Challenge in 2004. He remarked of the Bulldog,
“Very slippy, but it was a fantastic rally!”
Magherafelt’s Martin Laverty won the
1400 section of the Peugeot Challenge this year.
Entries
for the Killarney Historic Rally, backed this
year by ‘The Great Stuff Caterers’, are
coming in thick and fast, some of the latest
being Steve Perez in his Lancia Stratos, Donie
O’Sullivan and Phil Collins both in Escorts,
former Historic multiple Champion Dessie Nutt in
his Porsche and former Post Historic Winner Nick
Whale, also in a 911. Further to our story last
week that there was a possibility that Melvyn
Evans may drive an ex Bertie Fisher Manta 400,
it transpires that the first works Mantas
weren’t built until ’83 and are just not
eligible yet to compete.
Omagh’s Brian McGillin tried a WRC for the
first time on the Glens of Antrim Rally.
Although forced into retirement when the ex
Kevin O’Kane Impreza broke a cross-member on
its 2nd run over Ballypatrick, McGillen was
getting on the pace and could well go the WRC
route for next year rather than GpN.
Keith
Cronin displayed once again on the Fastnet Rally
his huge talent, and the 20 year old West Cork
man, a trainee accountant, was the fastest GpN
driver in his LHD Lancer, only an early puncture
stopping him from winning the category. Keith
will probably tackle the forestry series, and
must surely be in the reckoning for the Billy
Coleman Award.
Darren
Gass is set to compete on the 3rd December
Galloway Hills Rally in the ex Eugene Donnelly
Celica. Darren’s father Maurice used it last
Saturday on the Glens and could hardly drive it
he was laughing so much! Nicky Moffett has once
again done a superb deal with Stena for Irish
crews wanting to make the Galloway trip, and
there is the carrot of free trips next year for
Irish class winners.
Despite
not doing a reconnaissance and being hit pretty
hard by the nominal time for Slievenorra when
Stanley Ballantine crashed, Richard Cathcart
scored a brilliant GpN win on the Glens of
Antrim Rally. John McGlaughlin had road
penalties at the end which knocked him out of
the GpN win. Enda McNulty was 3rd in the
category and Hillsboroughs John Walker was 4th
on his first Glens of Antrim Rally. Jonny Morrow
was driving Philips old Evo, seemed to be doing
most of his own servicing and was 5th as well as
having a ball! John Donnelly's son Oran won
class 3 in the family Fiesta. John retired from
the rally when his Escort Cosworth gave
mecanical problems. Glenn Campbell was 2nd in
that class, following his heroic drive in the
Biggles goggles. But then he put the Micra in
the river, nobody else! Glengormley's Mark McRea
won class 4 in his Sunbeam. Joe McQuillan won
class 5 in the Civic with Ian Duff 2nd in his
Proton. Martin McCormack, with his brother Greg
co-driving, won class 6 in his Escort from the
similar Ford as Drew Stewart. Mark Barnett won
class 7 from Adrian Hetherington, both in
Escorts.
Brian
Patterson.
