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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Tralee/Saturday evening….
The Saturday evening Tralee centre ceremonial start got the ball rolling
on this Circuit of Kerry stages rally, round 2 of the Dunlop National
Championship. The rally has a fine entry, with many great drivers and
cars in the 151 strong entry list. Former National Champion Ray Breen
is No.1 on the road in his Focus WRC. Ray is the current Championship
points leader, following a fine victory a couple of weeks ago over the
slippy wet roads of Mayo.
The weather forecast for this rally is for fine weather, which hopefully
will mean dry roads and high speeds over the Kerry special stages. Will
the change in conditions make any difference to Breen’s dominance?
Only time and the results sheets after each of the rally’s eight
special stages will tell that tale. Certainly the following drivers, such
as Patrick Elliott, Aaron MacHale, Noel Redmond and Glenn Allen will be
out there doing their best to prevent Ray getting another win and building
up a lead in the Dunlop Championship. Patrick Elliott at 2 is hoping that
he at least gets a good crack at Breen, as his Subaru gearbox stopped
working almost within sight of the start line in Mayo.
Aaron MacHale, 2nd in Mayo, was hoping to get some test miles with his
Focus WRC this week. However with his brother Gareth and his father Austin
attending the WRC Rally Portugal, Aaron has been too busy in the family
business to think about the rally car. Once again then he will be in at
the deep end, with no match practice. Noel Redmond at 4 has a brand new
Prodrive built Impreza WRC S12 this weekend. He has been doing some test
work in the fabulous new car, so he should go well. Ironically though,
Noel professes himself happier on wet slippy roads, rather than fast dry
asphalt!
Glenn Allen in his Corolla WRC, former champion Niall Maguire in his Subaru,
Kevin Barrett and Sean Gallagher, also in Subarus, make up the top ten
seeds. There are a couple of names missing from the top ten – Martin
Doherty was to be at 6, but has withdrawn, and Liam McCarthy was to be
at 8, but his new car isn’t ready. Kevin Barrett at 9 is hoping
everything will be alright with his Impreza. On Friday the differential
for the car was in Rome airport instead of Dublin!
Just outside the top ten is a plethora of top GpN production cars and
drivers, headed by current GpN Champion Alan Ring with his Impreza, and
he will face some fantastic opposition, including first round winner Michael
Curran, Seamus Leonard, Kevin Kelleher, Gabriel Martin and Ian Barrett,
to name just a few. Thomas Fitzmaurice debuts a brand new Lancer Evo9
and runs in the gpN category.
There are all sorts of interesting drivers and cars throughout the entry,
who will be battling for their own class awards. The battle for 2 wheel
drive honours is always particularly exciting and with drivers like Mike
Quinn in his Escort, Anthony O’Halloran in his Opel Manta, John
Kearney, Aidan
Walsh, Ollie O’Reilly, Wesley Patterson and Ed Synan all in Ford
Escorts, it should be great to watch. As well as that we have twenty Juniors
who will be joining in for the second half of the rally.
Further non-starters, besides Martin Doherty and Liam McCarthy, include
Frank Wray, Bio Tech’s Tadgh Linehan, Joe McHugh, James Coleman,
Paul McEnroe and Russell Woods. There are several more down the list,
the net result being that quite a few of the reserves, such as John Quill
in his brilliant little Citroen C2R2 will get a run, and be slotted in
to the main field.
More news after stage 1: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net |
