| RALLY
NEWS NO.1
Killarney –
Friday evening…..
In the 28 years since this Killarney Rally of the Lakes rose to prominence
as one of the finest rallies in this rally mad country, no Kerry man,
driver or co-driver, has ever won outright. This year the rally has possibly
one of its finest entries ever, and despite that, for one young Killarney
man, Paul Nagle, there is more than an even chance that he could be ‘the
man’ this weekend, the first Kerry man to take the title. That feat
certainly won’t be easy. Paul co-drives for Gareth MacHale in a
’06 Ford Focus WRC. They start at No1 on the road for the opening
Molls Gap stage and then face a tough weekend of high speed stages, with
thousands of possibilities for things to go wrong, not to mention getting
beaten by any of the fantastic line–up of drivers behind.
A quick look at that entry list reveals six state of the art Focus WRC’s
and four Subaru Impreza WRC’s in the top ten. Indeed all the top
twenty is made up of WRC’s, plus there are many more down the order.
Immediately behind Gareth MacHale is British Rally Champion Mark Higgins
in his yellow Pirelli backed Subaru Impreza. Next up is last year’s
Lakes winner Tim McNulty in his Pierse Construction backed Impreza WRC.
At 4 is current Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly in his Impreza WRC S12.
Eugene and co-driver Paul Kiely are running for the first time under the
new Reid Motorsport Team banner this weekend – further proof of
the ever rising professionalism and commitment in Irish rallying.
At 5 is the fabulous young Norwegian teenager Andreas Mikkelsen in his
Focus WRC. We know that Ari Vatanen is a Finn, but the parallel between
that striking young blonde haired superstar driver arriving into Killarney
over twenty years ago, and this young Norwegian Andreas, with his striking
Nordic looks along with his exciting driving style, is pretty remarkable.
At 7 is Kris Meeke in the McKinstry Impreza WRC. Kris is a Killarney Lakes
Rally rookie, but with this young man’s world class talent, anything
can happen, and probably will! Austin MacHale, with many tarmac Titles
as well as Lakes victories over the years, runs at No 8 in his Focus WRC.
It is some testimony both to Austin’s ability as a driver as well
as his commitment to rallying, that he is in the top ten in a world rally
car, and that he has one son Gareth at No1 seed, and his other son Aaron
inside the top twenty in another Focus WRC. It must be a world first really!
Kevin Lynch and Gareth Jones in their respective Focus WRC’s make
up the top ten.
Any of the above drivers could do the business this weekend. However,
we go back to that young man Paul in the ‘hot seat’ of that
No1 car, and reflect on just one of his comments before the star, “A
fabulous entry, best stages in the world, the weather is fantastic, sure
what more could you want? Well, there is one thing – for us to finish
in the order we start – FIRST!!”
At stake this weekend are many different things. Points in the Global
Group Tarmac Championship, the 023 Tiles Championship, honours in the
2 wheel drive part of the rally as well as the Historic, Juniors and the
Fiesta Sporting Trophy. The Group N part of the main rally looks fascinating
with Colm Murphy the reigning GpN champion in his Subaru first of the
Production cars at No.24. Then it is James Foley (Lancer), Garry Jennings
(Lancer), Munster Joinery man Alan Ring in his Subaru, Roy White in his
Lancer. James Cullen is part of the new Reid Motorsport Team and he starts
at 30 in his GpN Lancer. Two interesting drivers at 31 and 32 are
David McNulty in his Impreza WRC and local Mazda dealer Johnny O’Sullivan
in his Escort WRC. (Johnny turned down a free dealer trip to S.Africa
so he could compete on the rally). There are very few changes to
the published entry list. Tony Davies was seed at 21 but has withdrawn
and Kris Meeke has Jonas Andersson co-driving. Garry Jennings has
James O’Brien on the pace notes and Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh
are non-starting. More news from the stages tomorrow: BRIAN & LIZ
PATTERSON www.rallynews.net |
