Irish Notes 13.11.06

 

 

The Southern Forestry Championship prizegiving took place last weekend in Wicklow and new Champion John McCarthy’s family were in attendance, with his sons Brian and James collecting John’s Champions Award. John himself continues to make progress following his accident in Wexford, and is just about up on his feet now. He is still in Cork Hospital and will shortly go to a special clinic in Wicklow for a two week course of intensive physiotherapy  

 

Owen Murphy collected the GpN Forestry Champion’s award, the young man from Cork another to be a strong candidate for the Billy Coleman Award, for which the interviews take place this week. Keith Cronin, another Coleman Award possibility, received ‘The Newcomers Award’. The McCauley Trailers sponsorship of the Championship has now run its course and Motorsport Ireland is hopeful of announcing a replacement in the next few weeks.

 

At a recent Forestry Championship seminar involving the competitors as well as organisers, ideas put forward and which will almost certainly be implemented for next season include abolishing end of season attendance bonus points, instead all 8 rounds to count. The Junior section is to be streamlined, WRC cars will have their own class, and there will be separate points for 2 wheel drive.

 

Elaine Higgins and Greg Shinnors are stepping down as registrar and PRO respectively of the forestry championship having worked hard at the jobs for many years, and received special awards at the prizegiving. Greg was originally to co-drive for Rory Galligan on Rally GB, but Rory is unfortunately unable to do the event. Greg is now earmarked to sit with Niall McShea.

 

Irish drivers competing on this weekend’s New Zealand WRC round include Limerick’s Matt Shinnors, as well as Kevin Shaw, formerly from Magherafelt and now living in Australia . Matt Shinnors is an electrical engineer who built Mk2 Escort rally cars in his spare time at Limerick . He then got a job in New Zealand for MS Motorsport.

 

The Fisher Foundation is to lend support to the Rally of the 1000 Entries and the new Rally Specialist Medical Assistance Fund. Emphasising the fun angle of the event, former saloon car Champion Alan ‘Plum’ Tyndall has entered his flying ‘RPM TV’ Previa, with five co-drivers!  Enduro bike man Davy Patterson has entered his brother Chris’s 1988 Dennis Fire Engine, with Ryan Champion co-driving! Chris is in New Zealand this week co-driving for Nasser Al-Attiyah, the pair bidding to secure the Production World Rally Championship. An interesting angle to the Rally of the 1000 Entries is a free draw, first prize a top co-drive, 2^nd prize a trip to the Monaco Grand Prix, plus a host of other interesting prizes. Entry for the draw is free, just e-mail your address to the rally web site www.rsmafund.com

 

London based Limerick man Ollie O’Donovan is to renew his acquaintance with an Escort Super 2000 when he competes on the  500 MRCI/UAC Kirkistown Rally in the New Year, driving Craigantlet’s Robin Perry’s ex- works example.

 

Tadgh Linehan finished runner up to Aaron McHale on the Top part West Coast Championship following last Sunday’s Kerry Mini Stages, while Enda Sherry was the winning co-driver, Eamonn Daly took the Championship GpN honours and Mike Quinn best 2 wheel drive.

 

This weekend’s Gullion Stages Rally, an 8 stage blast over the asphalt drives of the Slieve Gullion and Camlough Forest drives, features leading Mk2 Escort exponents including Brian Armstrong, Martin Teggart, Frank Kelly and Damien Toner.

 

The 2^nd/3rd December Killarney Historic Rally is the final counter of the Historic section of the 023 Tiles Southern 4 series, with Martin Sheehan (Mk1 Escort), Don Moynihan (Mk1 Escort) and John Hackett (Mini Cooper) the top three crews in the points, all with a chance of taking the title.

 

Mike Moloney, along with his co-driver Marie Casey was doing his recce for last weekend’s Kerry Mini Stages Rally when a local resident in a SEAT crashed into a bridge parapet in front of him. Mike quickly helped the hysterical woman driver out of the now burning SEAT, and then noticed there was a baby strapped into a child seat in the back. He quickly got the, thankfully unharmed, baby out. The woman was still hysterical and Mike realised then that she was indicating that there was a cat in the car. He spotted the moggy cowering under the dash, so he kicked the windscreen in, reached down and got the cat out. It transpired that the woman had taken the cat to the vet for treatment where the animal had been sedated, and the cause of the accident was probably because she had been keeping an eye on the cat and not the road! Mike continued his knight in shining armour when he carried a girl out of the driver’s briefing when she fainted! He got poor reward on the rally, delayed on the first stage when he stopped to check that Pat Donegan was OK when his Escort went on fire, and then Mike’s own rotary engined Escort broke its gearbox on the way to stage 3!

 

Kerry Mini Stages Class winners:

Clsss 14: Mike Quinn/Sean Enright (Escort)

Class 8: Stuart Darcy/Stephen Furey  (Impreza)

Class 4: Eamonn Daly/John Young (Lancer N)

Class 13: John Kearney /Denis O’Connell (Esocrt)

Class 15: Tom Randles/Sean Duggan (Celica)

Class 6: Ken O’Neill/Ronald Riordan (Puma)

Class 11: Joe McSweeney/Conor Collins (Escort)

Class 12: Fintan Canty/Denis J O’Mahony (Escort)

Class 3: Tom Curley/John Burke (Civic R)

Class 2: Mike Carty/Robbie Ward (Civic)

Class 16: Patrick Cunningham/Shane O’Brien (Civic)

Class 10: Trevor Mulligan/Michael Stafford (Escort)

Class 7: John Paul Ruth/Sorcha Kelly (Astra)

Class 9: Pat Ryan/Derry Collins (Escort)

Class 1: David Quigley/Padraic Callanan (Swift)

 

Brian Patterson.