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Irish Notes
by Brian & Liz Patterson |
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‘Softly softly catchee monkey’ goes the old adage, and to an extent that is how Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja in their Toyota Yaris WRC played it on last weekend’s rough, tough Turkish Rally. Whereas most of the other top drivers were flat out from the start, Tanak played it cool through the Friday stages, possibly the roughest day, and then on the Saturday afternoon sailed into the lead and on to victory over his Toyota teammate Jari Matti Latvala. New Zealander Hayden Padden also used his head and was a solid 3rd in his Hyundai. The chatter earlier in the season was mostly about the WRC title contest between Neuville and Ogier. The former seemed at times in Turkey to have the most speed, but his Hyundai broke. Ogier’s Fiesta WRC broke as well, and he nearly wrecked himself in fixing it at the roadside, which he did brilliantly. However, then the current World Champion put the car off the road in a ‘silly’ accident. He was unlucky to get stuck, but stuck Ogier was.
On the question of luck, Craig Breen didn’t have much of that either. He did brilliantly to be leading the rally early on, but dropped back because his Citroen sustained a puncture. But much worse was to follow on day two, when, through no fault of Craig’s, the car caught fire and was burnt out. It was a heart-breaking time for the Waterford man. Bangor’s Michael Orr was co-driving for Yazeed Al-Rahji and they were side-lined also when their car caught fire on a later stage, setting a forest alight as well. It was not a good scene at all, with an aircraft called in the spray chemicals on the conflagration.
In the R5 category Henning Solberg turned in a vintage performance to win the category in his Skoda. Henning was 6th o/a. Jan Kopecky, also in a Skoda was next up, and he took maximum WRC RC2 points as well as a step forward to winning the category in the World Championship. Chris Ingram/Ross Whittock were dipping their toes in the WRC RC2 waters and finished a very creditable 9th o/a, 4th best R5. In the smaller class Callum Devine/Brian Hoy in their Ford Fiesta R2T certainly didn’t let themselves down, finishing 4th in RC4 despite running in ‘Rally 2’ after driveshaft problems as well as turning the car over. Callum managed at least 1 category fastest time. Billy Coleman Award winner Callum reckons he learned a lot from the season, that his pace is upping all the time, and roll on Rally Sweden 2019!
The main spotlight was, and is, of course on the overall World Rally Champions title race. Now Ott Tanak, with a hat trick of outright victories, is right in the middle of the red hot title equation, the filling in the Neuville/Ogier sandwich. Ott didn’t have the latest specification engine for Turkey. He will have though for the next WRC round - the Wales Rally GB, 4th to the 7th October.
Also last weekend the Triton Showers National Championship took a penultimate step towards its conclusion with the Clare Stages Rally. Josh Moffett/Keith Moriarity ran out the winners by just over 7 seconds from Roy White, both in Fiestas. Indeed Roy White led to first service, and then Moffett stepped up the pace. The anticipated battle between Moffett and Declan Boyle never materialised, the latter outside the top ten initially and then working his way up to 5th at the end. Still, the ball is in Boyle’s court as regards taking the Triton Showers title and he only has to finish in the top eight on the final round in his home Donegal territory to secure the kudos. Daragh O’Riordan finished 3rd in Clare, last year’s winner Daniel Cronin was 4th, and then behind Boyle it was Padraig Egan who took 6th in his Subaru. Chris Armstrong was best 2wd and 7th o/a in his Escort, which does his chances of taking the Rally.ie 2wd Championship Award no harm. His main opposition is Donegal’s Stuart Darcy, whose Darrian was hampered at one point in Clare with a fuel problem. Ian Barrett had been as high as 6th but retired his Darrian in stage 5. Trevor Bustard in his Lancer won GpN. Gareth MacHale, who hasn’t competed on a rally for 7/8 years, started cautiously and then upped his pace as he settled in to R5 motoring and finished a very creditable 8th o/a.
Elsewhere on the rally front last weekend, Trevor Ferguson/Raymond Donaldson in their MX5 won the A29 Service Station Targa Rally by 8 seconds from Liam & Niall Shaw and with Jack Brian/Katherine Walker 3rd to make it a Mazda MX5 top three.
In Belgium Frank Kelly, co driven by his daughter Lauren, had a stupendous win on the Escort Rally, best of 150 Mk1s and Mk2s following almost 100 km of special stages. Former Ulster Rally winner Osian Pryce won the Historic section, and was close to Kelly in the overall stakes as well. Frank commented afterwards: “We had a class time. It went really well. We surprised the locals, we had a bit of a panic at the start, just selected 1st gear and we were gone. It was just one of the days I couldn’t go wrong.’ (Frank did admit that his Escort slid into a field and out the other side, but it only cost him about 10 seconds!). About the rally, Frank said: “ We were looked after really well and I felt we owed a lot of people who helped us, and the result was as much about that. The stage roads were very fast, in some places slippy concrete, a bit treacherous, but it stayed dry. There were massive crowds of spectators and I think we gave them some entertainment!”
Looking forward to this weekend, home rally action switches to the forests on the Bushwhacker Rally, a round of the Valvoline Irish Forest series and also a counter in the McGrady Insurance NI Championship. The organising Omagh MC has received a cracking entry for the event, with Desi Henry/Liam Moynihan in their Skoda R5 top of the 120 strong entries. Josh Moffett is at 2 Barry McKenna at 3 in their Fiesta R5+ machines, then it is Connor McCloskey (Impreza WRC), former Scottish Champion Jock Armstrong (Impreza) and Adrian Hetherington (Corolla WRC) making up the top six. Making the trip from Waterford is Andrew Purcell in his Fiesta R5+. He has tasted success on the Valvoline series this season and he will be out to prove a point. Also in that category will be number 9 seed Derek McGarrity, he must surely want to clinch yet another NI Rally Championship title in style. Only 2 drivers could spoil Derek’s Championship party, Desi Henry and Alan Carmichael. The battle between the 2wd exponents should be fairly special as well – David Crossen, Paul Barrett, Ryan Barrett and Shane McGirr are all seeded in the late twenties, and that is only the tip of the Escort iceberg! There are a swarm of brilliant young drivers in R2/class 4 cars, such as Jordan Hone (Opel Adam), Marty Gallagher, James Wilson and William Creighton all in Peugeot 208s, Ruari Maguire, Derek Mackarel and Stewart McClean, all in Nova/Corsas. A late entry, something a bit different, is Stevie Whitford in the Brendan Kelly Toyota GT86, now in gravel specification for the first time. But then there are so many talented drivers in the line-up it should be quite a day’s rallying through the woods.
Also this weekend the globetrotting Gary McElhinney is off to sit with Andrew Siddall in a Datsun 240 on the Balkan Classic Rally. Ernie Graham and his son Will are off to the Italian Elba Storico Rally, a round of the FIA European Historic series, Ernie is to drive his fabulous Fisher replica BMW M3 and Will the 1600 BDA Mk1 Escort, with both cars being looked after by Den Motorsport.
Brian & Liz Patterson
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