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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Carrick-on-Suir/Service/Sun. 11am There is a capacity line-up for today's Suirway Carrick-on-Suir Rally with competitive cars and drivers throughout the entry. Ray Breen in his Subaru Impreza Turbo heads the 130 cars today. Ray will face tough opposition from Richie Curran behind - Richie is very much on his home patch and is driving the ex-Frank Meagher World Rally Escort. Richie has a change of co driver from the official list, Owen Cleary sitting in today. Next up is Jimmy Lambert, co driven by James Coleman. Lamber may only be in a Mk2 Escort but today's tight twisty slippy stage will suit the Tipperary man down to the ground. At 4 is David James - his Escort BDX had a misfire on it's last outing on the Stonethrowers. That has now been traced to a faulty throttle sensor, so David could make the Escort BDX sing today. At 5 is Willie O'Dwyer in his Metro 6R4, now fitted with a new differential. Willie is quite often seeded way down the field, and has been hampered by catching slower cars. Today he should show his full potential, No.5 a fairly ideal starting position today - the roads should be partly cleaned by the cars in front. At 6 is Shay Power, then at 7 it is John Moynihan, both in Mk2 Escorts, both capable of a top result. Roy White at 8 is in the first of the Group N cars. Roy is here primarily today to try and get a good enough result to qualify him for entry into the Billy Coleman Award scheme. The Clonmel man tells us that he will be trying no heroics, he wants to keep the FESP backed Lancer in one piece for the final round of the Belgian Championship in 2 weeks. Chief opposition in gpN will probably come from Kieran Molloy, also in a Lancer, and Colm Doyle in a Subaru. Eamonn Murphy and John Nolan round off the top 10 - Nolan has James Glynn co driving. Changes to the entry list include - cars 23 and 24 non-starting. Quite a few of the reserves have been slotted in - Kerryman Jer O'Donovan for example has 133 on the side of his ex works Astra, but starts 29th on the road, just ahead of quick man John Shanahan in his Civic. Michael Maher has 132 on his Escort and he starts at 41. Gerry Maher has 136 on his G4 and starts 42nd on the road. Today's rally is also a round of the Ford of Ireland Ka Challenge 2001. John Carroll has a healthy points lead starting today and Diarmuid Falvey has been drafted in to codrive on this occasion. Trevor Harding is 2nd in the points, Barry Barrable 3rd. All in all, it is quite a line-up today..and there should be many stories before the cars return here to the Suirway Industrial Estate. Meanwhile, looking outside Ireland briefly - Austin McHale with co driver Brian Murphy in the Corolla WRC finished 3rd on yesterday's Bulldog Rally in Wales, after a day long battle with Stephen Finlay in Kenny McKinstry's new Subaru WRC. Finlay ended up 2nd, Marcus Dodd won. Eamonn Boland had been running in the top 6 but slipped to 9th, while Derek McGarrity had been 21st after early problems, but was knocking on the door of the leaderboard at the finish. In Jersey Forestry Champions Niall Driver/Francis Corrigan finished 5th in their Lancer. Whereas Niall normally drives in the forests, this time it was Francis driving, Niall co-driving. More news after stage 1 - BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON |
