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| ALMC Stages Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Pre Start - Sunday @ 08:53:58 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 City North Hotel/Sunday morning
This ALMC rally has once again attracted just about a full entry with Michael Barrable, co-driven by Dermot O’Gorman, heading an interesting entry list. The rally is a counting round towards several championships, including the Citroen Racing Trophy, the Mitsubishi Evo Challenge, the Honda Cup, and the Midlands East, the National Juniors, and the Irish 205 Challenge. This has led to a great variety of cars and drivers coming together at the City North Hotel rally HQ. Michael Barrable hasn’t been doing so much rallying recently, but he did win on his last outing, the Carlow Rally. He is in top form for this one which he considers more or less as his local event, and Michael is fully expected to live up to his No1 seeding here. His son Robert is competing as well, running at 54 in his Fiesta.
Starting at 2 is Mark Courtney in his Celica, fresh from his trip to Goodwood. He shared the runs with Tom Holton and Mark described the weekend with the stars as ‘brilliant’ and the car went well as well. At No3 is Adrian Hetherington in what must be one of the most potent Mk2 Escorts in Ireland, although having said that Adrian hasn’t had much fortune in the green machine. John McGlaughlin is at 4 and is the first of the registered Evo Challenge competitors, although Neil McCance at 5 actually heads the Evo points.
Neil has had a new differential fitted to his Lancer, plus the gearbox has been overhauled, so he is well up for it this weekend. Trevor Mulligan is at 6 in his Escort, while UK visitor Mark Jasper in his exciting Metro 6R4 is at No.7. Alan Carmichael in his Lancer, Michael Curran (Escort) and Cork man Brian O’Mahony (Clio S1600) make up the top ten. Alan Carmichael, normally a front runner in the Evo Challenge, had the ‘big’ tarmac brakes fitted to his Lancer on Friday night which should help his performance here.
The top Citroen C2R2 seed is Sam Moffett at 63, with top points scorer in the Citroen Racing Trophy Adrian McElhinney seeded at 66. Mark Kane, currently 3rd in the c/ship 1 point behind Martin Tynan is seeded at 139 and will probably get a higher start place. The top points scorers in the Honda Cup are Tomas O’Rourke and Damien McCarthy whose Civics are seeded at 24 & 33 respectively.
Some changes to the main entry list include Trevor Culbert (12), Paul McEnroe (18) & James Cassidy (20) non-starting. Into the top end of the list will come Seamus O’Connell, Brian Brogan and Arthur Kierans in their respective Escorts. Kierans has fitted a Pinto engine from Daniel McKenna to his Escort, and is looking forward to getting out on the stages again.
Craig Breen will head the Junior section of the rally, which joins in behind the main field on stage 5, in the new 1600 rally Fiesta R2. Craig was testing the new car earlier this week in preparation for the car’s debut, and he described it as a “Stunning bit of kit, unbelievable!” Matthew Wilson was in Ireland this week helping Craig with his test session. Craig currently lies joint 2nd in the Motorsport Ireland Junior Championship, equal with John Byrnes and two points behind Jonathan Cunningham. Jonathan now has M-Sport man Richard Millener co-driving. An additional entry to the Juniors is Marty McCormack fresh from his top 10 place on the Manx Rally last weekend. Marty is anxious to match his Citroen C2R2 Max against the new Fiesta R2 just to see how the pace compares. Emmet Sherry will co-drive. John Keatley in his Porsche is the highest seeded Historic, with David Ryan (Escort Mk1) at 2, and the Historics, like the Juniors, start at stage 5. Finally for now Danny Barry & Martin Brady have won the UK Mitsubishi Evo Challenge following a brilliant 4th o/a and group N victory on the Swansea Bay Rally yesterday.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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