Derek McGarrity starts at 5 on this weekend’s Donegal Harvest Rally, with Tralee’s Diarmuid Falvey co-driving. Derek will drive the Subaru that Eugene Donnelly drove to his 4^th Tarmac Title under the Reid Motorsport banner. Speaking from his Glengormley base, Derek commented,” I’ve never driven an S12 on a rally, and this seems the ideal opportunity. After the rally the car is going back to Prodrive to be ‘upspecced’ to an S12B, for Kris Meeke to drive on Rally Ireland. I’ve pulled a lot of deals together for Kris, busted my ass, there are a lot of people helping. I think he is the only driver in Ireland capable of getting anywhere near the works cars. There are at least 7 cars that nobody will get near – two Citroens, three Fords and two Subarus, and several more as well from the World Championship. As regards the Harvest, I’m under no illusion, I’m realistic enough to know that I would need to be working a whole lot more at my driving. I’ll be very happy to get near the top three.”

Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly will almost certainly drive the yellow Impreza WRC S11 that Mark Higgins and Kris Meeke drove this season. Eugene will drive the Subaru under the Reid Motorsport banner and indeed the S11 which has had a very successful year could be idealy suited to Eugene’s style and the tough Rally Ireland stages. Mark Higgins will be competing on Rally Ireland in a Group N car as part of his Production World Championship programme. Scott Martin co drives for Mark on the WRC rounds so at the moment Rory Kennedy isn’t contracted to drive for anyone.  

Also in the line up for the Harvest is Gareth MacHale at No1 in his Focus WRC,  but with no co-driver nominated as yet. Tim McNulty is at No2 in his Pierse backed Impreza WRC S11, with Eugene O’Donnell co-driving on his home rally. Paul Harris is at 3, and he may possibly drive one of Derek McGeehan’s Corolla WRC’s. Paul has no co-driver nominated. Austin MacHale is listed at 4 in his Focus WRC, McGarrity at 5 and P.J. McDermott, who was one of the co-developers of the rally HQ hotel, the An Grianan at Burt, is at 6 in his Impreza WRC S11. P.J. has Sean Harris co-driving. Former multiple National Champion Niall Maguire (Subaru) is at 7, Hugh Martin Doherty, coming to grips with his WRC S12 is at 8,

Michael Curran at 9 in his gpN Lancer, with Donegal man Fabian McShane co-driving and Seamus Leonard, with John McCafferty in the hot seat is at 10. Garry Jennings, with Rory Kennedy co-driving is at 11. Rory arrived back from Rally Yorkshire at lunchtime on Sunday and immediately jumped in with Garry to do the Harvest recce, having guided Mark Higgins to 2^nd overall and keeping their lead intact in the British Championship! Andrew Stewart is at 12 and is driving Richard Hogg’s Skoda Octavia WRC. Andrew has last year’s Harvest Clerk of the Course Paddy Robinson co-driving. Shaun Gallagher, fresh from winning the Rookie of the Year’ title on the World Rally Championship, driving his Citroen C2. One of his main opponents in Spain was young Barry Clark, who did such an impressive job demonstrating his Ford Fiesta at the Cork ’20 test stage, but he and co-driver Scott Martin had a big accident in their Fiesta in Spain, reportedly with no injuries. Whether Shaun starts in the Harvest remains to be seen. Paddy White is at 15 in his Focus WRC, Stuart Darcy at 16, with Claire Mole co-driving his Lancer, and Cahal Rodgers is at 17, also in a Lancer. Cahal always goes well in Donegal, and could well spring a surprise on the more established stars. Seamus Heron (Focus WRC), Damien Gallagher and Rodney Wilton in their Escorts make up the top twenty.

There was no one more delighted at the finish of the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire at Phillip Morrow’s great Mitsubishi Evo Challenge victory than Stevie Whitford. Stevie and the David Greer team have engineered Phillip’s Lancer all the way through, Stevie in particular pulling out all the stops for the young Lisburn man. A very accomplished driver, Stevie is building an Evo 6 for himself and plans to contest the BTRDA Championship next year. Phillip will of course be driving the ‘works’ Lancer as his prize, and also plans to contest  Rally Ireland this year in his own Lancer. Rally Ireland has got an oversubscribed entry and the selection/seeding is this week, but surely Phillip will have his entry accepted.

Almost unnoticed, Magherafelt’s Martin Laverty scored maximum Citroen C2R2 points on last weekend’s Trackrod Rally Yorkshire to move within 1 point of Championship leader Jason Pritchard. The next and final round is Wales Rally GB at the end of November. Martin’s wife Patricia missed Yorkshire. She was in China working at the Special Olympics. Patricia, and the Magherafelt Motor Club, raised £7000 to support the event.

The Down Rally ( 20^th October) is the next round of the NI Championship and moves to a new base, this time in Castlewellan and also has several new stages. Despite the postal strike entries are reportedly coming in well and so far include the top two Championship contenders Glenn Allen and Stephen Moore.

On the subject of the postal strike which Royal Mail say is a very serious situation and will continue for an unspecified period, all orders for route notes that are due to be sent out in the forseeable future will only be sent by courier. This is not a  problem but they will have to be signed for on delivery. This includes notes for both Rally Ireland and Rally Wales GB which we will be producing. Anyone who needs notes for upcoming events please get in touch regarding your order through our website or by telephone. 

The GSMC Mini Stages is taking place next  Sunday, based at Baltinglass and top entries include:-  James Foley & Andrew Cullen are the No.1 seeds in their GpN Lancer.  Kevin & Martin Kelleher are at No.2 in their Lancer, Andrew Purcell 3, Tom Holton at 4 in his Celicia, Trevor Culbert 5 in his Escort and David James (Escort) is No.6.

Crumlin’s Rodney White kept his head whilst others were losing theirs and co driven by Vincent Fergus took his Sunbeam to a great win on last weekend’s Systems Signs Enniskillen Clubmans Stages Rally.  Mervyn Wedlock/Martin McGarrity were 2^nd in their Escort and Harold Brown/Mark Scollan 3^rd in their Astra. Sean Treacy/Billy Regan were 13^th o/a and won class 4 in their historic BMW. Roger Donnan/Leon Jordan took class 3 in their Ford Puma. John Paul Stewart/Rodney Wilson had another good result and were 10^th o/a and won class 1 in their Swift. Trevor Mulligan/Paul Clark won class 7 and were 4^th o/a in their Escort. Trevor Lancashire had problems and finished down in 25^th place while Ron Neely, co driven by his daughter Gillkian, was 17^th in his Peugeot 205, 2^nd in class to Treacy.