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| West Cork Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Clonakilty - Saturday @ 08:43:29 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Quality Hotel/Clonakilty/Saturday morning
Once again this Quality Hotel West Cork Rally has come up trumps by attracting around 200 crews to the Clonakilty region. There are visiting rally crews from far and near to provide a real St. Patrick’s’ weekend holiday atmosphere. Clerk of the Course Darren McCarthy and his team have laid on a fast, challenging 16 special stage route culminating in one extra stage through Clonakilty as the climax at 5.0pm on Sunday.
John Dalton and his co-driver Gwynfor Jones in their extremely potent Darrian are the No.1 seeds on this year’s rally. John who is from Lampeter in Mid Wales commented as his Darrian was going through scrutiny at Quay Motors. “ We have stronger and bigger front brake discs fitted, otherwise the car is the same as last year. It is a real honour to be seeded No.1 on the road here in West Cork. I feel I’ve been competitive over the years and would dearly love to win. It would be a bit of a dream come true really, but it has been a great ambition to be competitive with the four-wheel drive cars. To win here we need the right sequence of events, dry roads, good notes and no mechanical problems. I think this is the first time since ’89 that a two-wheel drive car has been No.1 seed. Geoff Kitney won it in ’88 in a Darrian.” The wheel does indeed turn full circle.
On a much sadder note, John went on to discuss the terrible news of the death of the young Wexford man, John Joe Galvin, who died in a road accident on the way to the rally. Several of the Wexford crews, including James Stafford in his Darrian, have withdrawn from the rally as a mark of respect. We, along with every one else on the rally, extend our deepest condolences to all the families and friends of those concerned.
Behind the John Dalton Darrian, Daragh O’Riordan/Tony McDaid are at 2 in their Scariff Plant Hire Subaru and will certainly be trying hard to make sure the visitors don’t get it all their own way. However this will be Daragh’s first competitive outing in this car, so he will probably need a few stages to settle down. Another local man, Kevin Kelleher, is at 3 and although Kevin is in a GpN Lancer, he will certainly be a real force to be reckoned with. Slotted in behind Kevin’s Lancer is Colm Murphy who is running with No.146 on his GpN Impreza. Danny Barry is next up and has the number 151 on his black Lancer Evo 9. Robert Barrable’s Skoda S2000 will be fifth ‘on the road’. Billy Coleman Award winner Robert was hoping to get some asphalt testing with the Skoda, but that didn’t work out so he will be straight in to the deep end on the opening stage. Welshman Peter Lloyd’s fabulous Impreza WRC rounds off the top six, while the top 10 is then completed by Trevor Mulligan, young Damien McCarthy, John Buttimer and Brian O’Keefe.
For most of the weekend the main rally field will be preceded by some classic GpB rally cars from an earlier era. The rally has a competitive historic section as well, where Denis Moynihan in his Mk1 Escort is the No1 seed, Mark Falvey is next up in his Escort RS1600 and Todd Falvey in his Porsche 911 is 3rd historic on the road. Joining in the action on Sunday is the Junior section where Andrew Lehane, Darren Young and Vincent McSweeney, all in Honda Civics, are the first three seeds in a field of around 20.
The Ballinascarthy stage, No.6/8 on the agenda, has to be shortened by several Kms, now finishing at what was location 18 and stopping at post 19.
More News from service: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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