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Notes 30th April 2008
This weekend’s Killarney Rally of the Lakes features a bulging entry list, with every facet of the entry – the International, the Historics and the Juniors, all well supported. Integral to the main rally is the Mitsubishi Evo Challenge, while the Fiesta Sporting Trophy competitors run within the Junior category. The ‘Slowly Sideways’ club of classic rally machinery again will have a presence. Biggest breaking story from Killarney is that Kris Meeke is going to get a run after all, albeit in a Super 1600 Clio, not a WRC car. Gareth MacHale will lead the main field away, and the competition between the top drivers should be pretty dramatic. Eamonn Boland is at 2, and following his Circuit of Ireland victory Eamonn leads the Global Group Tarmac Championship points table on 25, Tim McNulty has 22, Aaron MacHale is on 16, while Gareth is down in 6th with 12, behind Mark Higgins and GpN leader John McGlaughlin. Gareth’s non-finish in Galway certainly did him no favours in Tarmac Championship terms, although of course there is a long way to go. What with Eamonn Boland being on the crest of a wave following his Circuit win, Tim McNulty hugely determined to get to grips with his new Impreza WRC S12b, allied with his knowledge of how to win in Killarney following his victory two years ago, plus a load of testing of the new car, Derek McGarrity on a really determined comeback and the multi-talented Donie O’Sullivan with a huge desire to become the first Killarney man to win the Lakes, the hype is coming to the boil for this weekend. Aaron MacHale maybe in a slightly older car, but National Champion Aaron has the knack, like his father Austin, of coming through towards the end. Kevin Lynch at 8 can never be discounted. He’s just too good, too determined, to ignore. Patrick Elliott is at 8, and although he is in a brand new S12b and feels that he only really wants to get to grips with his new car to maintain his main objective of National Championship honours, Cavan man Patrick has found a fair turn of speed of late. Seamus Leonard was to round off the top ten, but Noel Redmond has substituted, and brings yet another state of the art Subaru Impreza WRC S12b to the fray. Kris Meeke’s entry has to be one of the big talking points of the rally. Kris was down in Newcastle West last Friday to do some set up work on the Clio for Ian Roche, and one thing led to another. Bryan Allen of Great Stuff Catering agreed to be the main sponsor to back Kris, and it was all stations go from there. Ian Roche who has several Peugeots and a Saxo available as well as his Clio, and is starting up a new company called Excel Rallying, is also contributing a lot. Kris is delighted at the opportunity, as rallying is where his heart is, and of course it was in Super 1600 that he really cut his rallying teeth. On top of that, not only was it the Killarney Lakes where he won his first International, he has good knowledge of the tough Saturday stages from the Killarney Historic where he drove a Mk2 Escort. Indeed, that was the last rally Kris competed on, and he confesses that although he is getting plenty of driving, he is really missing competing. Here’s hoping he gets a good run – the sparks should be flying! Paul Nagle will again co-drive. Taking into account just how classic the stages are, including the Tim Healy, Ardgroom, Cods Head, not to mention Molls Gap – indeed every stage is a classic – this could be a very memorable rally. The Fiesta Sporting Trophy part of the rally, the 2nd round in 2008 for the E85 fuelled Fords, sees Gwyndaf Evans’ son Elfyn heading the points following the opening Circuit of Ireland round, with Adrian McBride 2nd and Stephen Wright 3rd. Defending Champion Alastair Fisher was sidelined on the opening round in Galway when his Fiesta broke a drive shaft. Then on the Circuit his Fiesta broke a fuel line over the Hamilton’s Folly jumps. Another driver looking forward to the run is local Mazda Dealer Johnny O’Sullivan. He has hired Kenny McKinstry’s Impreza WRC S9, something he has always wanted to drive. Johnny is hoping for a bit of reliability, keen not just to get through the Saturday stages, but to have a real good run on the Sunday stages as well. So often in recent years Johnny has been in the hunt with his Escort WRC, into the top ten, only to encounter car troubles and either fall back or drop out. Another local driver hoping for a good run is Kieran Marshall, son of Mike & Noreen Marshall, the mainstays of the rally since it’s inception. Kieran’s Southwestern Power Services Honda Civic had major gearbox problems when the internals of the box melted due to a malfunction. Kieran got new gear clusters last week, has rebuilt the box and is hoping all will be well to continue his bid for class honours on the Tarmac Championship. In the Evo Challenge nine crews have registered, and although Colm Murphy was the pace setter on the opening two rounds, he non-finished both which has allowed Ballymena’s Alan Carmichael to lead the points going into this 3rd round. A welcome returnee to the sport is Damien Tourish, who has now recovered from his accident at work earlier this year. Damien is seeded at No. 51 behind Jeremy Taylor & Jody Patterson who will be driving a brand new Evo 9 from the Raymond Mason hire fleet. Jeremy and Jody are being sponsored by www.rallynews.net The rally is also a round of the 023 Tiles Southern Four Championship and Donie O’Sullivan (Subaru WRC) leads that on the strength of his West Cork victory, with Liam McCarthy (Corolla) 2nd and James Stafford (Darrian) 3rd. With neither McCarthy nor Stafford contesting the Lakes, the door is open for the 4th and 5th placed drivers, Alan Ring and Wesley Patterson, to move up the 023 Tiles Southern Four order. Further changes to the Killarney entry list include: Richard Lucey, Paul Browne, Raymond Heaney, and Jason McSweeney come in from the reserves. Stephen Murphy, Willie Fannin, Gerard Seaman, Andrew Fanning, Tom Gormally, Enda Hallinan and James Brett have withdrawn. Lisburn’s Phillip Morrow switched on to World Rally Car driving with what appeared to be comparative ease and clocked up a string of fastest times in one of the former ‘works’ Mitsubishis to win last weekend’s Granite City Rally. This was Phillip’s first outright rally win. Meanwhile on the WRC Jordan Rally Letterkenny’s Shaun Gallagher, co-driven by Sligo man Paul Kiely, also had a memorable weekend, taking 2nd place in the Junior WRC with his Citroen C2. Shaun made a cautious start to this difficult rally, but his tactics weren’t far wrong as he moved inexorably up through the field as others ran into problems. On the Rally of Somerset Frank Kelly shook off the effects of his recent illness and scored a brilliant result in his Mk2 Escort, 9th overall and best 2 wheel drive. Frank’s co-driver Aidan Friel had the misfortune of his car’s engine blowing on the way to the ferry, so with running late neither Frank or Aidan had the chance to look at the notes or the DVD before the rally. They just got on with it, and surprised themselves with good times on the two asphalt stages up Porlock Hill, and from there never looked back. “I got in the groove” reported Frank, “I really enjoyed the rally. I’d never been there before, the stages were different, through woods, still gravel, but different from usual.” Seamus O’Connell also went well, although his higher powered engine pulverised his tyres and he nearly ran out of rubber towards the end. Seamus still won his class and was 11th overall. Ciaran Mahon was disappointed that his good run was spoiled a little by a puncture and he dropped to 2nd in class. Adrian Hetherington had axle trouble with his Mk2 and recorded a DNF. Ryan Barrett also had axle trouble following a puncture. However Ryan once again drove brilliantly and with the help of Frank Kelly’s mechanics managed to change the axle and finished 14th o/a and 2nd in his class. For Frank Kelly now the dilemma is does he enter Donegal or go for the next BTRDA round, the Dukeries, which is the same weekend. His feeling is, “We’ve spent all this time and effort on the BTRDA, it’s a good Championship, and although I want to do Donegal, I’ll probably stick with the BTRDA. I’m just annoyed that, when I wasn’t well, I had to miss the Malcolm Wilson Rally.” Looking ahead, Magherafelt Motor Club has released the entry list for the 17th May Tour of Sperrins. It is pretty impressive, bulging with WRC & GpN cars as well as Escorts. Charlie Donnelly is listed as No. 1 seed and Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly is at 7 just ahead of David Bogie. News is coming out as well of the North Armagh Club’s Loughgall Festival, which is scheduled for 5th July. Regards: Brian Patterson. |
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