Former GpN Tarmac Champion Roy White has confirmed that his deal to drive the MG Super 2000s on Rally Ireland is definitely on, and that he will be going to test the car this week. By all accounts the David Whitehead MSD concern built MG is the business, and Roy hopes to have the car on a permanent basis to run under the FESP banner.

The peripatetic Martin Brady finished 6^th on the Lake Superior Rally in the US where he was co-driving for Piotr Wyktorczyk in a Subaru. They would have finished 4^th overall but got penalised 2m30s for exceeding the speed limit by 10mph on a road section. Martin will be co-driving again this weekend on the Townparks Rally in North Antrim with Kevin O’Kane in their Impreza WRC. Martin’s wife Laura is expecting another baby, which should keep Martin even busier!

Sean Devine has won the Glens of Antrim Rally (Townparks) for the last 2 years. Sean’s name doesn’t appear at the top of the entry list because apparently his entry got lost in the recent postal strike. However, Sean and his co driver Damien Duffin hope to be in the line up on Saturday morning. Sean’s Subaru engine broke 16 valves on the recent Down Rally when the cam belt teeth stripped off following one of the massive Kilbroney stage jumps.

Martin Elliott has been giving rallying a rest for the last 2 years but is hiring a David Greer Group N Lancer for this weekend’s Mid Antrim MC Townparks Glens of Antrim Rally, which of course his family car sales business, Townparks for Vauxhall, is sponsoring.

Glenn Allen and co-driver Damien Connolly are the number 1 seeds on the Townparks, but it is yet unclear if Glenn’s Corolla WRC will be ready. He has Sean McArdle’s Toyota on standby if needed. The NI Championship is still nip and tuck for the title between Glenn and Stephen Moore who starts at No.2, with Raymond Johnston at 3 in his Impreza WRC. John McKeown and his wife Mandy finished 3^rd overall last year in their immaculate Escort Cosworth and they start at No.4 this time. James Murphy makes his annual trip up from Charleville and starts at 5 in his Dominic McNeill prepared Escort Cosworth. Richard Hogg rounds off the top 6 in his Skoda. Donegal man Hugh Martin Doherty is tackling this forest rally in his older Impreza, not the WRC S12 example. Eoin McErlean is the highest seeded GpN driver in his Lancer. Other top GpN entries include PJ Gillespie, Ian Cochrane and Howard Clarke.

Cork man John O’Leary has decided to tackle Rally GB again – this will be his third time. He will drive a Subaru Impreza N10. John would have liked to have had a go at Rally Ireland, but sees Rally GB through the fabulous Welsh forests as a bigger challenge. In any case John, who has his own rally preparation business in Cork, is looking after Willie Fannin’s GpN Impreza and Brian O’Mahony’s Renault Clio on Rally Ireland.

Fresh from winning the 023 Tiles Southern 4 Championship, with a resounding top 10 finish on last weekend’s Fastnet Rally, Kevin O’Donoghue is off to South Africa this week to work for 7 days on the Niall Mellon Township Trust. Kevin is a builder and property developer in Killarney and he goes to South Africa to work from dawn to dusk for a week building houses for the needy in a township. He also donates five thousand Euros into the fund. There are several hundred others doing the same thing, so it is a very big scheme indeed. Kevin lost 3^rd gear on his Lancer in Fastnet but just drove on at unabated pace to achieve a very good result. Tim McNulty was 2^nd in the 023 Tiles Championship and Kevin Kelleher 3^rd.

Class winners on last weekend’s Fastnet Rally included Kenneth McHale Class 1 in his Yaris. Gerard Sharkey Class 2 in his Civic: Donal Lennon Cl.5 in his Ford Ka: Ken O’Neill cl.6 in his Puma: David Randles cl.7 in his Almera: Victor Beamish Cl.9 in his Corsa: Martin Lordan Cl.9A in his Escort: Stephen Sheehan cl.10 in his Sunbeam: Jason O’Mahony cl.11 in his Civic: James Cassidy cl.12 in his Escort: Tommy Doyle cl.13 in his Escort: Anthony O’Halloran cl.14 in his Manta:

It appeared as if young Letterkenny girl Toni Kelly had missed the cut for entries on Rally Ireland. However Toni, a class winner in her fabulous new JAS built Honda Civic R on the Tarmac Championship this year at her first attempt, has been informed that she may after all get going. A letter has been sent by the Rally Ireland organisers to the FIA requesting confirmation that it will be OK.

One withdrawal from the original list is Seamus Leonard. Although he had arranged for a new Lancer from ADR, Seamus had his own reasons for withdrawing, one of them being that he felt disadvantaged in not being a ‘priority’ driver. Colm Murphy and Alan Ring have been nominated by Motorsport Ireland under the ‘wild card’ scheme and will be priority drivers, so that they will for example be able to have a gravel note crew, which Seamus will not. The thing is, Rally Ireland is a totally different ballgame from any other rally in Ireland, and runs strictly under the FIA World Rally Championship rules, and that’s the way it is.

The Super Rally regulations for example are different for priority and non-priority drivers. If a priority driver hits trouble on a stage, the team is not allowed to touch the car. It has to be transported back to parc ferme, and only then can the team remove it, work on it for three hours, and get it back into parc ferme four hours before the restart. A private driver is allowed to get the car out of the stage himself, take it away and work on it for as long as he likes, providing he gets it into parc ferme four hours before the restart.