Irish Notes 27th July 2016

Bobby Willis, Circuit of Ireland Event Director for the past seven years, announced that for budgetary reasons, plus a lack of planning time, next year’s event will not take place. Willis has worked himself to a standstill to raise the rally from the doldrums to the successful major European Championship level attained over the last two years. The efforts by himself and his team have been almost superhuman, but Bobby realises that to sustain the momentum he needs a definite financial plan, which has proved elusive, so that everything else can fall into place.

This year’s rally was not only a European Championship event it was also a counter in the British, Irish Tarmac and NI Championships. Now is the time when all those organisations are putting their 2017 plans together, so that is part of the reasoning why the announcement is being made at this time. There is a possibility that a, perhaps lesser, rally could be organised by the UAC, but Willis has the rights to the Circuit title. This deferment decision is yet another example of the difficulties facing clubs and rally organisers all over the UK and Ireland, faced as they are with ever increasing regulation and budget considerations, and indeed which has caused the cancellation of many UK rallies. A symptom of the difficulty factor is that this year’s Ulster Rally Clerk of the Course, Gary Milligan, has recently decided to take early retirement, as he is having to spend 12 plus hours a day on the rally organisation. He could not do his job and organise the rally at the same time.

No doubt many wise and not so wise words will be spoken and written over the coming days and weeks concerning Bobby Willis’ deferment decision. However the real loss will be to rallying, the sport, as the Circuit of Ireland has been one of the main flagships of Irish Rallying for a long time, particularly since the ‘Fifties’ when Gordon Neill introduced proper special stages. It is ironic that Gordon’s son Malcolm, who also ran the Circuit for many years, was sadly laid to rest this week. We can only hope that the Circuit will, as Bobby Willis hopes, be back in 2018 stronger and better than ever.

Amazingly in this busy rally period there were no stage rallies on at home this past weekend, although there was the traditional Kerry Rally Sprint at Tralee Racecourse and once again Pat O’Connell, co-driven by his sister Grace, took the overall honours in his Lancer. Mike O’Connor Jnr/Keith Curley finished 2nd in their Impreza. The Polish driver Lukasz Czapnik, co-driven by Bartek Curylo was 3rd in an Impreza. Lukasz has been competing in the Kerry club’s ‘autosolo’ events and won the series last season.

This weekend coming on the home front is the Cookstown MC’s Tyrone Stages at Benone, while further afield the World Rally Championship resumes in Finland. Tyrone Stages Clerk of the course Bob McKeown has devised a very interesting and what looks to be enjoyable couple of stages at Magilligan, and although the entry isn’t huge, it has a bit of quality about it. The rally is a counter in the McGrady Insurance NI Championship and current Champion Derek McGarrity is the No.1 seed, with Tralee’s Diarmuid Falvey co-driving his Fiesta WRC. No.2 is Martin Cairns in his Fiesta WRC, now converted to RHD. Also in the mix will be Kenny McKinstry in his Subaru WRC, while Camillus Bradley, Brendan Cumiskey and series sponsor Fintan McGrady should be amongst the top runners. McKinstry will have Geraldine McBride co-driving this time, which should free up Kenny Hull to sit alongside Kenny’s daughter Emma, who may get the chance to drive one of the team’s S14s.

In Finland Citroen is fielding a three car team of DS3 WRC’s – with Kris Meeke, Craig Breen and Khalid Al Qassimi the three drivers. Winning the Finnish classic, or The 1000 Lakes Rally as many people still refer to it, would for a rally driver be akin to a cyclist winning the Tour de France, such is the Jyvaskla based event’s prestige. With no Championship constraints, Meeke could possibly do it. Breen has extensive Finland experience so could snatch a decent result here, while Khalid Al Qassimi can be expected to again do a solid job. The rub is the opposition. The best rally drivers in the world will be competing and all of them, especially the Scandinavians, want the big result in Finland.

The Volkswagen team, Hyundai and M-Sport Ford will be giving it everything this weekend. Similarly every young driver in the WRC2 category would give his, or her, eye teeth for success for glory on this one. Elfyn Evans in his Fiesta R5 is the top seed and he is up against some very strong opposition. Fermanagh’s Jon Armstrong, co-driven by Noel O’Sullivan, is contesting the RC4 section in his Fiesta R2T and also the DMack Cup. Following his strong showing on Rally Poland, if Jon could follow that up with a good performance here, it would be really something special and could prompt a few people to take note of this talented young driver. For the moment though Jon is just enjoying the hugely enjoyable experience that is rallying in Finland!

Slightly further ahead, the Stonethrowers Rally is all coming together and CoC John Ward has produced three very good, challenging and technical stages South of the River Suir, with each stage to run three times. Entries for the Clonmel event are coming in well, and the top Triton Showers National Championship contenders are all expected to be in the line up. There could be a few ‘wild cards’ as well as some of the British as well as Irish Tarmac Championship contenders could take the opportunity to compete, as with the nature and type of the stage roads, would be a superb shakedown for the Ulster. Certainly Alastair Fisher has his entry submitted to drive his usual Dom Buckley prepared Fiesta R5. On the same weekend as the Stonethrowers (6th/7th August), the Maiden City club is running the Dogleap Rally at Shackleton. Early interest in that is being shown by the redoubtable Stevie Whitford, to drive the Brendan Kelly Toyota GT86, on which he has been helping with some development work. Another interesting entry will be Alan Carmichael in a McGeehan Motorsport Mini WRC, as a warm up for the Ulster. We will have more news on the Stonethrowers and Dogleap next week.