This weekend’s Skibbereen based Fastnet Rally is not just the final round of the Dunlop National Championship, it is also the final counter in the 023 Tiles Southern Four series. Adding a lot of spice to the top of the mix is the fact that several top drivers are competing with a view to a final shakedown for Rally Ireland. As ever the Fastnet stages are great mix of fast and slow challenging asphalt stages, through some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. HQ for the Rally is the West Cork Hotel. The lovely river flowing down the side of the hotel has a couple of resident otters and a heron – very special!
The overall Dunlop title has of course already been won by Aaron MacHale and his co-driver Killian Duffy, while the Pattersons RallyNews award has been taken by Michael Curran/Fabian McShane. There are still some classes to be decided, particularly in the rear wheel drive category amongst drivers such as Anthony O’Halloran in his Manta and Wesley Patterson and Trevor Mulligan in their Escorts.
In the battle for overall 023 Tiles Southern Four honours, where the best four from five scores count, the title is still wide open. Kevin O’Donoghue has a slender lead over Mark Nangle, but drivers such as Kevin Kelleher, Tim McNulty and Denis Cronin could steal a march.
Tim McNulty’s main aim though is to settle a final specification on his Pierse backed Subaru in preparation for Rally Ireland. Also getting ready for Rally Ireland will be Eugene Donnelly in his newly acquired Skoda Fabia, and Andreas Mikkelsen, who was tipped to be going to drive a new ’06 Focus WRC, but indications are that it will be one of his older cars. Eugene has tested his new Skoda and is really pleased with it so far. Reiger is building him new suspension struts, with a very slightly longer body, to give little more travel for the Irish roads. The car will run with a five speed box for increased reliability. Derek McGeehan will run the car along with Erik Wever. Derek was going to Holland with a trailer at the start of week to get the Skoda. It was supposed to be an empty trailer, but then that changed when Glenn Allen crashed the Denis Heaney Corolla WRC, and it has to go to Holland to get jigged. Paddy Toner will co-drive Eugene this weekend. Eamonn Boland was to drive a new Focus WRC 06 having foregone his Subaru but it would appear now that the new Ford may not be ready and Eamonn could be a non-starter. The remainder of the top 10 would appear to be intact and include drivers such as Gareth Jones, Ray Breen, Kevin Barrett, Melvyn Evans, PJ McGrath and Denis Cronin.
James O’Sullivan of 023 Tiles, who hasn’t been doing so much rallying this season as he has building a new house, plans to hire an Impreza WRC for this weekend. On his first run in a Subaru WRC on the Fastnet last year, James produced a great drive, and finished 4th overall. James will again have Brian Duggan co driving and will start at No.11.
Kevin Kelleher is the top group N seed in Skibbereen, the Clonakilty man reporting that, having won the Baltinglass event outright his Lancer went back to Stan Harper Preparations as usual and nothing untoward was found. The car has had its usual check over and will line up in Skibbereen at No.16. Just some of the other top group N drivers include Willie Fannin, Alan Ring and ian Barrett in their Subarus along with Keith Cronin in his Lancer which should provide an interesting battle.
It was great to see London based Limerick man Ollie O’Donovan win the British Rallycross title at Croft last weekend. 41 year old Ollie had a tough day, his Peugeot suffering driveshaft breakages. When asked was he finished with rallying, quick as a flash Ollie replied, “We’ll be back rallying – don’t worry!” One of the reasons Ollie is rallycrossing is that it costs so much less than rallying. He reckons one rally costs nearly as much as a season’s rallycrossing. Andrew Nesbitt, who is also dipping his toe in the rallycross waters, dropped in to The Plough in Hillsborough last week for a bite to eat, and made the remark, “You cost rallying by the mile, rallycross by the yard!” Andrew is well down the road to getting his deal together to drive a full Mitsubishi WRC on Rally Ireland, and if it all comes together will be pretty special.
Top seeds on this weekend’s Gullion Stages include Gerry Smyth, Brian and Norman Armstrong and Trevor Lancashire, all in Escorts. The rally consists of multiple runs over the asphalt drives through the Camlough & Big Gullion forests.
The NI Champions title is still up for grabs following the Down Rally, despite Glenn Allen being unfortunate enough to crash out of the Down event and Stephen Moore having to step into Martin Cairns’ Subaru and finishing 4th. So it’s down to the wire on the Mid-Antrim MC Townparks event. Glenn is tipped to be going to drive the Sean McArdle Corolla WRC and Stephen Moore should have his Focus WRC’s petrol tank repaired and will be able to drive his own car.
Richard Cathcart, co-driven by Martin Brady, took his GpN Impreza to a significant win on the Down Rally. The top three were GpN cars, and only a couple of WRC machines started the rally, which is quite interesting. It was a brilliant performance by young Cathcart, again emphasising his huge natural talent. His co-driver Martin Brady remarked afterwards, “We were surprised to be leading after the first stage, as we felt rusty, not having competed for 5 or 6 weeks. Richard is a great driver, fantastic the way he can put the car sideways, and place it anywhere.”
Martin himself is off to compete on the Lake Superior Rally this week, with a Polish driver, Wyktorchik, in a Subaru. He commented that without the Irish and the Poles, there would be virtually nobody rallying regularly in the USA series!
The Fiesta Sporting Trophy International ‘shoot-out’ will take place at M-Sport on December 3rd/4th. Jonny Greer and Alastair Fisher are automatic choices, Jonny having won the British series and Alastair the Irish. Letterkenny’s Conor Harvey has been selected as a ‘wild card’ finalist for Ireland on the strength of his strong performances through the year. The finalists are from all the FST series throughout Europe. The prize is a contract for 12 months working on event as part of the M-Sport team.
Next year’s Irish Forestry series is reportedly going to have two extra rallies, Birr and Wexford. Further changes on the cards are that the ‘1400’s’ and Juniors will run first on the road. The suggestion to allow a controlled recce has apparently been turned down, both at the open forum last weekend and at the forest committee meeting earlier this week.
Further Irish drivers in the limelight last weekend included Errol Clarke who drove brilliantly to win GpN on the Bulldog and Daniel Barry, who was 2nd in GpN, 5th overall and was the highest placed Evo Challenge finisher. Daniel prepares his own Lancer, and apart from a small oil leak towards the end, had a clear run. Daniel also won the Pirelli award, which earned him 25 tyres, and was also joint first in the PIAA junior series for ‘under 25’s’, but lost out on a tie break.
Frank Kelly was another who had a tremendous run on the Bulldog, finishing 8th overall and best two wheel drive in his Escort. The big, technical but superb Welsh stages are pretty daunting to someone who hasn’t seen them before, and Frank says that, as he had no knowledge of the forests at all, he really just concentrated on driving to the notes and everything worked brilliantly. Frank has done 31 rallies on the current engine, and it is right on its rebuild limit, but it did the job! He said his face was sore at the end of the rally he was smiling that much!
Top Formula 1 pundit Tony Jardine is coming to do Rally Ireland, with John Davenport’s daughter Franca, a journalist, co-driving. Tony was having a real problem getting accommodation for the Rally Ireland, but Navan’s Paddy White has pulled out all the stops and got Tony a new house beside his Lough Allen Hotel at Drumshanbo. Paddy himself is also competing on Rally Ireland in his Focus WRC. Apart from being the sporting director for MG in the days of the Metro 6R4’s, John Davenport co-drove Achim Warmbold (nicknamed hotscrews) to victory on the 1975 Donegal International. They competed in that fabulous green and white stripey BMW 2002 Alpina.
Regards, Brian Patterson.
