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| Mayo Stages Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Pre Start - Sunday @ 08:24:39 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Castlebar/Scrutiny/Saturday evening
Following a quiet start, the entry for this Mayo Stages Rally, 2nd round of the Dunlop National Championship, has shaped up well. Gareth MacHale, brother of last year’s winner Aaron, will head the 124 cars plus 6 ‘juniors’ out to the special stages in the Sheeffry and Partry Mountains. As well as being a round of the Dunlop series, the event is also a counter in the Border Championship, sponsored this year by ‘HASS’. Gareth MacHale with Barry Goodman co-driving this time and not Brian Murphy as originally listed, sees his entry on the rally as all part of the development of the new Opel Corsa Super 2000, and for him to get used to it as well. As Gareth’s Corsa went through scrutineering at Casey’s Garage he commented: “We had a test session yesterday in Tipperary and it went very well. The car is good. The only problem here is that I’ll be on the rev limiter in 6th gear. With the X-Trac gearbox we are limited to about 100mph, that’s the way these cars are. The stages are very good but fast in places.”
Running at 2 is current Dunlop National Champion Patrick Elliott in his Subaru Impreza WRC S12b. Patrick started the defence of his title in the best possible way with a win on the opening round in Nenagh, so should have his tail up for this 2nd round. Patrick’s Subaru has had little more than routine maintenance by the Robbie McGurk team since Nenagh, the car only needing a new clutch and fan belt. Behind Patrick are the Subaru WRC’s of Niall Maguire and Kevin Barrett. Former multiple champion Maguire, and indeed former winner of this rally, gave Elliott a good race for it on that Nenagh Rally, but Monaghan man Niall saw his chances spoiled by a puncture. Niall reported all well with his Subaru for here, as did Maynooth man Kevin Barrett.
Garry Jennings in his Lancer is the first of the Group N drivers. Co. Fermanagh man Garry was forced to withdraw his Mitsubishi in Nenagh when a couple of little screws fell out of the fuel injection butterfly and went into the engine. He has since had the head off the engine and it has been all rebuilt and retuned. Behind Garry it is Ruan man Anthony O’Halloran at 6 in his GpN Lancer. Anthony has had to fit new wheel bearings to his Lancer, but otherwise reports all well. When quizzed on whether he is making a serious bid for GpN Championship glory, Anthony coyly replied. “We’ll take it round by round!’. Indeed the GpN interest seems to have really picked up this time, and as well as the top GpN seeds Jennings and O’Halloran, behind them are Sean Flanagan in his Impreza and Donegal’s Danny McBride in his Lancer, both running in the top ten.
Eamonn Daly, Trevor Bustard and Tom Muldoon are all in the top twenty in their respective Lancers, while there are several drivers in GpN machinery listed towards the back of the entry list, including Thomas Fitzmaurice, Fergal Costello and James McNulty. They will almost certainly get start times up in the top twenty. Top front wheel drive exponents include Brian O’Mahony who starts at No.8 in his superb Clio Super 1600, as well as Andrew Bushe who is at 24 in his Saxo.
O’Mahony was hoping to get the gearing on his Clio changed to suit the fast stretches in these classic former Circuit of Ireland stages, while Bushe has had a fair bit of work to do to his Saxo following a collision with a straw bale on the recent Kirkistown Rally. Top rear wheel exponents who should be in the hunt here include Trevor Mulligan, Des Moore, Russell Woods, Daniel Conaghan, and a whole lot more, all in Escorts. Mulligan & Moore were the rwd ‘benchmark’ in Nenagh, Cavan man Woods 11tho/a on this rally last year and Conaghan was a class winner on last year’s Dunlop Championship. Woods was beefing up his Escort’s steering rack bushes at scrutineering. Something different in the RWD department is Sean McHugh’s BMW Compact. The BMW has M3 running gear and the 6 cylinder E36 engine. Sean is seeded down at 48. One of the year’s Sean ran this rally was in ’04 when Niall Maguire won and that was over much the same roads as this year’s CoC Jonathan Rice has picked.
Some changes to the original published entry, besides Barry Goodman co-driving for Gareth MacHale, include Martin Brady now co-driving for Garry Jennings, Frank Curtin is with Andrew Bushe, Peter O’Toole with Gerry Casey, David Loughney with Colin Loughney and Adrian Flynn with John Kelly.
More news after stage 1: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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