Irish
Notes 4th September ’06
Monaghan’s
Dessie Keenan, co-driven by one of his service
machanics, Pauric ‘mouse’ McCarron, took his
famous black Escort to a great win on last
Sunday’s Hellfire Rally at Oldcastle. The first
two stages were damp and slippy, and Pat Donegan
in his Escort, and James Foley in his Lancer were
swapping times for the lead. The 3rd
stage dried out, slick tyres were the order and
Keenan was stunningly fastest. “A briiliant,
fabulous day” was former Group N Tarmac Champion
Keenan’s comment at the end.
Andreas
Mikkelsen is being tipped as another high profile
entry for the Cork 20 International.
The 17 year old Norwegian has been quite a
sensation so far in his Focus WRC.
Interestingly, on the Manx International
the organisers appointed a Child Protection
Officer to watch over Mikkelsen and several other
young drivers including Letterkenny’s Toni
Kelly.
Gareth
MacHale is a surprise entry for this weekend’s
Lakelands Stages Rally in Fermanagh.
The Northern Ireland championship round has
a brilliant top 10 which includes Kevin Lynch in
his Impreza WRC, former Production World Rally
Champion Niall McShea in a group N Lancer. Other
top drivers include Raymond Johnston, Garry
Jennings & Kevin O’Kane. Fisher Engineering
is backing the rally and the scrutineering/start
is from their Ballinamallard engineering works.
Young
Graham Nesbitt was just one of the drivers at a
high profile Citroen Sport evening in the Hurst
Group’s Belfast showroom on the Wednesday
evening before the Ulster Rally to view the new
Citroen C2 R2.
Citroen Sport team manager Yves Matton, as
well as the manager of the customer sport
department Jean Francois Lieniere were in
attendance. This was followed by demonstration
runs by Kris Meeke on Thursday over the Cooley
Mountain stage outside Dundalk.
Graham, (Andrew Nesbitt’s son) was very
impressed, as were many more. The new Citroen C2
R2 could become a popular rally car in Ireland,
not least through the example of Meeke’s
performance on the Ulster.
This
weekend’s Wexford Rally is also a round of the
Triton Showers South East Stages Championship.
Wicklow’s Lloyd Hutchinson, with Kevin Flanagan
on the pace notes, has already the title secured.
The pair have put up a stunning performance
this season in their Mini Cooper which has a
1440cc Mini engine with a KAD twin cam head and
produces just over 180 horse power.
The car only weighs 700kgs.
The crew has picked up a succession of
class wins and 2nd in class on events as diverse
as Carlow, Ravens Rock and the forestry series,
putting many big cars to shame.
Eamonn
Boland is the top seed for his home Wexford (Dick
Bailey Stages) event which stretches over 2 days.
The event base has now returned to Wexford town.
Brian
Patterson
