Irish
Notes 5th Sept ’07
Fresh from his great run to 2nd in the Production
category of the WRC Rally New Zealand, Niall McShea
is listed in the top ten entries for this weekend’s
Fisher Engineering backed Fermanagh Lakelands,
a round of the NI Championship. Glenn Allen, who
heads the NI series points table, is the top seed
and is hopeful his own Corolla WRC will at last
be repaired following his accident at the start
of the summer. Stephen Moore is seeded right behind,
and the Focus WRC driver, fresh from winning the
Killarney Forestry and reinforcing his Hankook
Irish Forestry Champion’s title, will need
a win if he has any chance of overhauling Allen
in the NI series race.
Further top names in the Fermanagh list include
Richard Hogg in his Skoda WRC, Raymond Johnston
who has acquired a more recent Impreza WRC, an
ex Seamus Devine Subaru, and Garry Jennings in
his Lancer. Although he is keen to compete on
his home rally, Raymond Johnston may not make
the start as he is patiently awaiting new suspension
for his Subaru, and there is still no sign of
it being delivered to Kenny McKinstry’s
workshops. Another doubtful starter for Saturday
is Neil McCance, as his accident on the ‘Superally’
section of the Ulster was bigger than was at first
thought.
Scrutiny for the Lakelands is in the Fisher Engineering
workshops in Ballinamallard on Friday evening
and the service area on Saturday is at Garrison.
As well as the usual stages such as Ballintempo,
Big Dog and Connagher, the rally has a new stage,
Tullycherry.
The Lakelands is also a round of the Irish Fiesta
Sporting Trophy series, where Alastair Fisher,
who had a brilliant run on the Ulster, holds a
2 points lead over Jonny Greer in second. Letterkenny
man Conor Harvey is in 3rd, but Conor might struggle
on this one as he has limited forestry experience.
Tadgh Buckley is 4th in the points, Kyle Orr 5th
and William Mavitty, like Alastair Fisher on home
ground for this one, is 6th.
Just 9 of the UK based MSA gravel championship
contenders made the trip to the Killarney Forestry.
Only 8 actually started. The nature of the stages
came as a bit of a culture shock to their top
drivers Steve Perez and Marcus Dodd. The weather
played its part as well, as wet mucky conditions
made the going very difficult. As the day progressed
though, the Englishmen got into the way of it,
and Perez in particular, following a 1st stage
puncture, turned in some quick times to pull his
Vodka Kick Focus up to 3rd behind Marcus Dodd
in his Hyundai. It wasn’t enough though
to deny Dodd the MSA Gravel Champion’s title.
At the end of the day most of the visitors enjoyed
the rally and said they would come back.
Stephen Moore had a new co-driver for the day
in the shape of Greg Shinnors, which seemed to
work well. Greg reckoned there was a lot more
to come from the pairing, but conditions were
so treacherous that it was no place to try anything
new. As is his way, Moore started the event quietly
and finished with a flourish to cement his victory
and reinforce his position as the new Hankook
Irish Forestry Champion. Keith Cronin and his
co-driver Anthony O’Connell again did a
brilliant job, driving with great judgment to
win GpN on the rally and the Championship, and
provisionally would appear to be runner-up to
Moore in the overall points standings.
Just one of the many incidents that emphasised
the wet conditions on the Killarney forestry was
James Murphy bringing his Escort WRC into the
sleepy village of Mountcollins service area with
co-driver Anthony Nestor furiously cleaning the
moisture off the inside of the windscreen with
a squeezy thing on the end of a bit of a stick.
Nestor joked, “The only problem is that
I’ll either have to get a longer arm or
a longer stick as I couldn’t reach far enough
over to let James see where he is going. James
went off the road on a straightforward square
right and when asked how that happened, admitted
to just going too hard. That seemed tb the story
for many people, the number of cars ending up
in ditches was remarkable.
The IMRC is re-introducing the Irish Rally Retro,
a two day event scheduled for the weekend of 21/22/23rd
September and based at the Beacon Hotel in Sandyford,
Dublin 18. There will two days of tests and regularities
in Counties Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow. Sounds
like fun! More details can be had on retro@beaconautomotive.ie
Kris Meeke’s win on the Ulster Rally was
hugely significant in many ways, just one of them
being that for his co-driver Paul Nagle it was
his first International win, and more than that
restored his self belief and confidence on his
first outing since the Sardinia crash. Where to
now though for Kris Meeke is the burning question.
If he doesn’t get a run on Rally Ireland
it will be a crying shame. Interestingly, when
Sammy Hamill first broke the story in the Belfast
Telegraph that Kris had been offered the Pirelli
Impreza WRC for the Ulster, a number of people,
some of whom Kris had never even met, offered
financial help. Immediately after the Ulster Kris
just simply didn’t know what was up the
road for him, but time is of the essence as entries
are being taken this week for Rally Ireland, and
to delay will cost a lot more money. Eugene Donnelly
is certainly on course for the Murphy Construction
Cork ‘20’, but interestingly Mark
Higgins, the only driver who can deprive Eugene
the Global Group Tarmac Title, commented at the
finish of the Ulster, “Honestly, I don’t
know if I will be there, that decision has not
been made. There is a lot involved.”
Derek McGarrity plans to continue his ‘rally
rehab’ with a run on the Clare Stages (15th/16th
Sept), but Dermot O’Gorman will be probably
co-driving, as Diarmuid Falvey has booked a trip
to the ‘All-Ireland’ Diarmuid should
be back in with Derek for the Cork ‘20’
Plum Tyndall of RPM organised a ‘Super Car’
day in conjunction with the Hillsborough Oyster
Festival. The general idea was that Plum gathered
together a group of friends and main agents together,
all with various nice cars, from Porsches to Ferraris,
and people came along to Hillsborough Square outside
the Plough, paid a few pounds and were taken for
a spin. Despite a bit of rain early on, the whole
thing reportedly went extremely well and over
£6000 was raised for Action Cancer.
On a personal note we wish to offer our very deepest
condolences to James and Margaret McGreal following
the death of their lovely little son Daragh. This
tragedy is hard to take in after seeing them all
together so happily on the Galway Summer. Such
lovely people. This fills us with immense sadness.
Brian & Liz Patterson.
