Last weekend’s Imokilly Stages seemed to run well, with Jonathan Pringle taking victory, while on the European Rally Championship event in Estonia Ralfs Sirmacis won in his Skoda.

Just over 80 cars started on the Imokilly event, and Cavan man Jonathan Pringle in his Mk2 Escort maintained his run of good form this season with a start to finish win on this ‘Mini Stages’ event. 35 year old Pringle was co-driven on this occasion by James Fulton, more usually seen guiding Sam Moffett. Donegal’s Declan Gallagher, with guest co-driver Shane O’Mahony in the hot seat of his Starlet RWD, was 2nd throughout and Enda O’Brien/John Butler in their Escort were a close 3rd.

Balmy weather conditions, plus lots of spectators allied to the mostly fast open nature of the roads made for an enjoyable day for the drivers. This was despite a plethora of chicanes. There were virtually no retirements amongst the top contenders. Eight of the top ten finishers were in Escorts, the exceptions being Declan Gallagher in his Starlet and Daniel Cronin in the ‘family’ Lancer. Both Gallagher and Frank Kelly had, in the run up to the event offered their co-driver posts to be raffled in aid of the ‘Culann Wants to Walk Charity’. Declan had Shane O’Mahony in the hot seat and reported afterwards, “We had a trouble free run. The co-driver had never called notes before but he never missed a beat all day and I was glad to get the result for him.” Frank Kelly was a little more circumspect, having spun his Escort at the first junction of the opening stage, Frank saying of his new co-driver JJ Harrington: ‘He seemed to enjoy that!’

Jonathan Pringle did have a few worrying moments during the day as in the first junction of stage 3, a repeat of the opening stage ‘Cloyne’, his Escort gearbox jammed momentarily and the car spun backwards into the scenery. (This was the same junction Frank Kelly had his moment on earlier). Pringle lost little time but the exhaust of his Escort was broken and stayed that way for the remainder of the stages. Jonathan commented afterwards, ‘We made a good start to the rally, pulled out a decent lead, so there was no need to go mad towards the end. I was surprised we didn’t drop time, very pleased to have won.”

Top Ten:-
1 Jonathan Pringle/James Fulton (Ford Escort) 43m52.3s
2 Declan Gallagher/Shane O’Mahony (Toyota Starlet RWD) +30.9s
3 Enda O’Brien/John Butler (Ford Escort RS Mk2) +01.5s
4 Chris Armstrong/Chris Melly (Ford Escort) + 05.5s
5 Colin Byrne/Brian Quinlan (Ford Escort) +48.8s
6 Daniel Cronin/JJ Cremin (Mitsubishi Evo9) +17.2s
7 Tom Flaherty/Martin Flynn (Ford Escort Mk2) +04.0s
8 Mark Dolphin/Colin Fitzgerald (Ford Escort Mk2) +04.4s
9 Donal O’Brien/Stephen Quinn (Ford Escort Mk2) +30.8s
10 Frank Kelly/JJ Harrington (Ford Escort) +18.6s
Class Winners:-
1 Billy Ryan/Gavin J Downey (Honda Civic EK4)
2 John S. Quill/Liam Brennan (Citroen C2R2)
3 Kevin Dolphin/Martin O’Brien (Renault Clio Super 1600)
4 Philip Cross/Tony Hennessy (Mitsubishi Evo 9)
9 Pat Ryan/Jack Dalton (Ford Escort Mk2)
10 Jerry O’Mahony/Willie Buchanan (Ford Escort)
11F Simon Reid/Richard Cleary (Honda Civic)
11R Richard Harney/Brian Harney (Ford Escort Mk2)
12 Kevin Cole/Matthew Kirwan (Ford Escort Mk2)
13 Leonard Downey/Mark Murphy (Ford Escort)
14 Chris Armstrong/Chris Melly (Ford Escort)
16 Eric Calnan/Aileen Kelly (Peugeot 106 S16)
20 Daniel Cronin/JJ Cremin (Mitsubishi Evo 9)

On the Rally Estonia, Alexey Lukyanuk (Fiesta R5) seemed to have it in the bag, but just before the end he reported, “The steering arm didn’t manage to keep with the landing and after that we lost control!” This left Ralfs in his Skoda to take victory, Kajetanowicz (Fiesta R5) finishing 2nd. Kajetan, who featured so well on the Circuit of Ireland, has a decent lead in the ERC points (92), against Lukyanuk (77). Young English driver Chris Ingram is doing well and he finished 10th o/a and 2nd Opel Adam home. The next ERC rally is in SE Poland through the Carpethian Mountains, bordering on Slovakia.

Also last weekend, Monaghan’s Sam Moffett got in some tarmac practice with a difference which should come in handy for the forthcoming Ulster Rally – Sam won two ‘Supercar’ races at Mondello – beating regular racing ‘hotshot’ regulars such as Peter Barrable and Andy O’Brien. This makes it three race wins this year for Moffett, who now has a chance at taking the ‘Tool Dynamics Supercar’ title. Last weekend’s Formula Vee Festival meeting at Mondello also raised funds for Laura Lynn-The Children’s Hospice.

It was a successful weekend for Irish crew Seamus Burke, originally from Donegal, now based in Atlanta Georgia, and his co-driver Martin Brady, who now lives in Connemara. They won the New England Forest Rally in their Mitsubishi Evo that is similar to a class 20 car in Ireland. This was a very special achievement indeed for the pair. David Higgins in the Subaru USA Impreza has been the dominant factor in recent years, but it didn’t work out for David this time. When Martin flew back into Ireland earlier this week he was kind enough to pen a few words about the weekend and as ever with Martin it was beautifully written, informative and entertaining. –

“The event was round 6 of 8 in this year’s Rally America championship. It runs in two states with stages in Maine on Day One. Day 2 moves over the New Hampshire border. The event had 10 stages, just over 100 stage miles. David Higgins was first on the road with his ‘open class’ works Subaru and a win on this rally would have secured another Championship for him, but it wasn’t to be. He retired on SS4 when a strut came through it’s mounting following a heavy compression landing on bedrock, of which there is plenty on these stages. The strut damaged some electrical wires on its journey out through the bonnet. It was impossible for David to make it through the next two stages and into service. Prior to this we had trailed David by two minutes but were a strong 2nd. As ever David was the consummate sportsman and he pulled right over to allow us to pass. We then held the rally lead to the finish and drove as safely as we could, braking for every big rock to avoid punctures or a similar fate to David Higgins.

Seamus is a man of many miles and he last won the rally in 2001 ahead of the late Mark Lovell in the days of no pacenotes and blind tulip only stages so it was a special victory for the Burke family to see him on the top step again 15 years later. It was my first Rally America outright win and it gives me a special hat trick of having overall wins on events in each of the three North American Rally Championships – (N.A.S.A
C.A.R.S and Rally America).

Other Irish interest in the event included New York domiciled Gary Donoghue and Oldcastle’s Andrew Browne retiring from 2nd following the demise of Higgins. They had been struggling with turbo problems on their Lancer, their stage 4 demise caused by torn brake pipes. Regular Irish National competitor Martin Donnelly shipped his Corolla WRC to the USA along with a McGeehan Motorsport team with Gary McElhinney co-driving. Given that there was no class for a car with a paddle gear shift they were placed in the regional status event which runs parallel with the main event. A day one puncture cost 7 minutes but they recovered on day two to take a win in the 2nd regional event, the New Hampshire Stages. New York based Barry McKenna from Monaghan also shipped his Ford Escort to the USA and it proved quite a fan favourite as a Mk2 is a ‘lesser spotted animal’ on USA events. He was putting in excellent times on his gravel debut to hold over a minute ‘2WD’ lead. He was co-driven by Arthur Kierans and was ahead of the 2WD regulars but fell victim to the rough stages and an excursion. Other Irish interest included New York resident Paddy Brennan, formerly from Cavan. He was leading the production class in his Mitsubishi but he too suffered retirement with broken suspension and an excursion.

One final twist to this rally story was, and you can only visualise this happening in America, as soon as the champagne spraying stopped a pair of spectators suitably attired for a wedding stood forward and proceeded to exchange their vows in front of a ready prepared celebrant and a much awe struck but vocally supportive group of competitors and fans! Not a thing that has precedence ….maybe a ‘bar has been set’ and this trend could be repeated at an Irish ramp, and there is an opportunity here in Ireland for a club to provide an additional wedding clause in some future regulations!

Thanks for the story Martin! Seamus and Martin have three class wins in the Rally America Championship, and will go to the next round in North Dakota (27th/28th August).

Closer to home, rallies coming up in quick succession include the McGrady Insurance NI Championship Tyrone Stages (30th July), with The Dogleap in Shackleton the following weekend (6th August) and the Triton Showers National Championship Stonethrowers on the Sunday (7th August). The Stonethrowers is also a counter in the Suirway South East Stages. Also on that weekend of 29th-31st July is WRC Rally Finland. Hopefully more information on all these rallies next week….