Irish Notes Monday 29^th Jan 2007 .

 

Two well known competitors, Noel McCarrick and Tom Gormally, are the principals in a property development company, Global Group, who are to sponsor this year’s Tarmac Championship. Noel McCarrick, from Tubbercurry in Co. Sligo, drives an Impreza WRC with Donegal’s Eugene O’Donnell co-driving. Tom Gormally drives a Honda Civic Type R and has Ross Forde on the pace notes. Both are from Galway .

 

Welshman Melvyn Evans and his co-driver Sean Mullally from Limerick collected their 023 Tiles Southern Four Champions prizes at a glittering awards ceremony last Saturday night in Cork . Melvyn is currently re-building Steve Fleck’s ex-Pirelli ‘test’ Impreza WRC S9 and plans to contest the MSA Asphalt Championship. He hopes as well to defend his West Cork Rally winner’s title. His main opposition there should be Liam McCarthy, as well as Denis Cronin. McCarthy is tipped now to be getting a new McGeehan run Impreza WRC S12 from Prodrive, while Cronin’s Impreza WRC has gone to Dom Buckley’s workshop to get sorted.

 

Forestry Champion John McCarthy got a standing ovation at the 023 Tiles Southern Four Championship prizegiving when he was presented with the ‘ Munster Car Club Driver of the Year Award’. John’s attendance, with his family, marked another important and very welcome point in his continuing progression to full fitness, following his Wexford Rally accident.

 

Stories from the early reconnaissance for this weekend’s Galway International include Martin Doherty, the winner of last week’s Kirkistown stages in his newly acquired Impreza WRC S11, has  withdrawn his Galway entry because of work commitments at his Letterkenny DAF agency.

 

Current Billy Coleman Award winner Owen Murphy from Cork has a new James Foley built Lancer Evo 9, and reported that on a brief test session he found the difference in speed and braking between the new car and his old one pretty stunning.

 

Mike Bird/Kevin Keane just missed out  by a few seconds last year on ‘best Galway crew’, and have bought Paddy White’s Impreza WRC S8, an ex Richard Burns example, in an effort to ‘close that gap’!

 

Former British and Tarmac GpN Champion Trevor Cathers will celebrate his 60^th birthday just after the Galway rally, and, ‘TC’ as he is fondly known, plans to see just how quick these young tigers really are! Trevor drives an Evo 9, built for him by his son, as part of his degree in Motorsport engineering.

 

Last year’s Killarney Rally of the Lakes winner Tim McNulty commented in Galway last weekend that although he hadn’t been in his Pierse backed Impreza WRC S10 since his massive Ulster Rally accident, he switched on immediately at a test session in Scotland, arranged by the Buckleys, last week. He quickly felt that he hadn’t been away, and is looking forward enormously to Galway and the new season.

 

Clonakilty brothers Kevin and Martin Kelleher had little or no luck in their Lancer last season, and are hoping that matters will improve somewhat this year, starting with Galway, having changed to a new James Foley built Lancer. The GpN entry in Galway is however enormous, and the level of competition promises to be very high.

 

Luke McCarthy, one of the country’s most successful drivers a few years ago, along with his co-driver David Hogan, was hoping to make a ‘light-hearted’ comeback on the Galway International. The plan was to drive one of Austin MacHale’s Corolla WRC’s. However the necessary International licences could not be sorted out in time. The pair will now consider tackling the St Patrick’s weekend West Cork event.

 

George Cullen, who drives the ex Kevin Lynch Impreza WRC S9, was to have Tralee man Jakes Kelly co-driving in Galway, but the irrepressible Jakes is snowed under with work and Diarmuid Falvey will now read the notes in the Subaru.

 

The Galway Rally organisers have issued an attachment to the competitors’ final instructions regarding the regulations governing the use of helicopters. It is certainly a sign of the times on Irish rallies that the skies are rather busy at times, and with such a high profile entry in Galway , there could well be a fair bit of whirlybird traffic!

 

Innovations by the Galway organisers include an HQ move to the fabulous new Clayton Hotel , a shakedown stage at Francis Gap on Friday, and a ceremonial start at Eyre Square on the Friday evening.

 

Paul Purtill, co-driven by David Lyons, took his Escort to a decisive victory on the ALMC

Mini Stages event last Sunday. The special stage roads, just North of Dublin , were damp and greasy initially and Purtill slid his Escort into a ditch on the first stage, but quickly recovered to build up a good lead after the four stages. Jim McKenna was 2^nd in his Starlet and Monaghan man Damien Hagan 3^rd in his Escort.

 

Derek Brannigan co-drove for young Jonny Greer from Carryduff last weekend on the ALMC. They were using the event as a shakedown for the Fiesta Sporting Trophy on the Galway International. Brannigan is to co-drive as well this season for Aaron MacHale on the Dunlop National Championship. Greer had a successful run on the ALMC, and finished 2^nd in class to Tomas O’Rourke. Wexford man O’Rourke was driving a new Civic and had Oonagh Roche co-driving.

 

Former winner George Robinson is amongst the top seeds for this weekend’s Mid Antrim Motor Club’s Ballypatrick stages rally. The event is light on entries, partly because of a date change, but also because competitors, and indeed marshals, want to be in Galway this weekend to see double World Champion Gronholm in action.

 

 

Obituary

 

Former National Rally Champion Bertie Law sadly passed away last week, following an illness. Bertie was National Rally Champion in 1983 and 1984, when he drove an ex Jimmy McRae Chevette HSR. One of Bertie’s proudest moments was winning the Lurgan Park Rally, just pipping Kenny McKinstry and Bertie Fisher. He held on to the ex McRae Chevette, and had it restored to ‘as new condition’ and was very proud of it. He also kept in touch with Jimmy and helped Colin McRae in his own way, but that is just one of a thousand stories concerning Bertie Law. Through the seventies Bertie was a front runner in Magnums and competed for many years at the top level on all the major rallies in Ireland . He was also a front runner in rallycross in the late Eighties. He never lost his love of the sport and in recent years regularly made trips to various WRC events and also could pop up on such events as the Sligo National. Bertie was from Hillsborough, and was a director in the family contracting business at Lisburn, his pristine yellow heavy haulage lorries a familiar sight on the roads of Northern Ireland . Through all the years it was always a pleasure and a privilege to work with, compete against and socialise with this great and lovable man. He was a real character, a very special, considerate, human, ‘one of a kind’ guy.  He will be sadly missed. Our deepest condolences go to his wide family circle.

 

Brian Patterson.