Irish Notes 20th May 2015

This 3rd week in May 2015 may be seen in years to come as another watershed time in Irish rallying. The reason for this summation? Well, Tarmac and National Rally Champion Declan Boyle seems to have decided to move on from his all conquering Subaru Impreza WRC to a new Fiesta WRC. So what is so shattering about this piece of news? For quite some time now the feeling amongst many of our top drivers has been that the latest breed of 1600cc turbo, non electronic transmission WRC cars couldn’t compete with the traditional 2-litre turbo Subarus and Ford Focus WRCs. An added complication for many of the established top drivers is that the new type cars are not available in RHD. It is easy to argue that drivers such as Sam Moffett have easily and successfully made the move to the Fiesta WRC – but then even Sam, despite his successes, admits that there are times the Fiesta WRC lacks that last little bit of performance. And of course Sam has never actually owned an Impreza WRC, although any time he has driven one he was brilliant. Perhaps the over-riding factor has been the charisma and blood stirring magic of the Subarus. Reliability and parts supply, or rather lack of, has now become a factor, as well as the performance advance of the new cars, seems to be the factors driving Declan Boyle to make the change. It will be a week or two before Declan has the new car and in the meantime he has bought a couple of left hand drive road cars, Jetta GTi’s, one for home, one for his UK business, to try and familiarise himself with sitting on the ‘wrong’ side of the car. Declan may drive one of his newly acquired VW road cars this Sunday to chauffeur the club safety officer Eamonn Denning round on the Cavan Rally – quite a neat idea really, to get Declan into the swing of LHD and let him get a picture of the organisational side of the sport. And what of Declan’s all-conquering Subaru? – possibly the most successful car in Irish Rallying having won double championships with Tim McNulty as well as Declan Boyle – the car is bound for Niall Maguire’s workshop in Monaghan.

Through all this the WRC/Tarmac Championship saga bubbles away. This Friday the Tarmac Championship organisers are having a meeting in Lucan to try and thrash out just what the future WRC direction is going to be on the ‘Tarmac series. This follows a tailing off in top entries in recent times, although not for the forthcoming Donegal Rally. There have been calls for and against allowing WRC machinery to continue in the Championship. This is rather a ‘cleft stick’ situation - for the most part as regards the two day Tarmac Championship rallies drivers with the time haven’t the money and those with the money haven’t the time! Which is one of the main reasons of course why the National series is so successful and why banning or handicapping WRC cars on the Tarmac will not change that one iota. The Tarmac Championship is owned by the various constituent participating rallies, so coming up with the correct solution to this situation is rather vital for them. The feeling does seem to be prevalent that the more WRC’s the merrier. Derek McGarrity reckons that if the restrictor on the 2 litre cars was reduced by 1mm that would resolve the situation. And as Derek says, that is coming from him who has an interest in keeping the 2 litre cars as they are. Part of the problem in this matter is ‘self interest’. Certainly however it would seem that for most of the organisers, and ‘the fans’, the more WRC cars they can have and see is the most popular scenario. For Declan Boyle, following his recent difficult run, where all his usual speed has been more than evident but the results just haven’t happened, his chances now of retaining either his Tarmac or National Titles are more or less gone for this year. One thing which would help to redress this disastrous season for Declan would be to again win his home Donegal International Rally. Now that would be quite a launch for the new car, but at the same time the deal with Niall Maguire means Declan has the option to drive the Subaru. However Declan wants to run the new car, following an extensive test, and is adamant that ‘It is the way forward.”

This weekend’s Cavan Rally C of C Stephen Kellett reports a full house of entries, but the door is still open for anyone who may want to try for an entry, because there are generally a few ‘no-shows’. The rally sports a top entry, with 6 times Cavan winner Niall Maguire heading the cars away from the Kilmore Hotel out towards Ballyconnell for the stages. Garry Jennings is at No2, the former Tarmac Champion hoping that all the bits for his Subaru will come together in good time this week in order to get going in Cavan, which will begin his preparations for the Donegal Rally. Similarly, Peadar Hurson at 3 is waiting for an inlet manifold for his Subaru, as well as a few other bits and pieces, but he should make the start okay. Looking on down the top ten seeds, there are some very accomplished drivers indeed, with for example Chris Armstrong and Jonathan Pringle vying for 2wd honours.

Also this weekend is of course the WRC Portuguese Rally and besides Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle in the works Citroen we have a good turnout of home drivers. Craig Breen/Scott Martin should be amongst the “R5’ front runners in their works/Santeloc Peugeot 208 T16. Daniel McKenna/Andrew Grennan in his Citroen DS3R3T is making a big effort for this one. Billy Coleman Award winner Dean Raftery, with John Higgins co-driving, is debuting his new Citroen DS3R3T on this one and should go well. Sadly Keith Cronin/Stuart Louden will be non-starting, the Irish/Scots crew damaged their Citroen at the official RC2 test earlier this week.

Also this weekend, a bit closer to home, Keith White will be bidding for a hat-trick of wins on the Loughgall Stages rally this Saturday. Keith wil have Damian McCann co-driving in his brilliant little Mk1 Escort. Top seeds on this North Armagh MC organised event include Jim McKenna at 2, David Armstrong in the ex Kevin O’Donoghue Escort at 3, Martin Teggart, Trevor Wilson and Damian Toner at no’s 4, 5 &6, all in Escorts. Over 50 entries have been received for this all 2wd rally through the grounds of Loughgall.

Looking back to last weekend, both Josh and Sam Moffett in their respective Fiesta WRCs achieved good results on the Plains Rally despite being on unfamiliar territory. Josh was 2nd o/a just 6s down on Dave Weston at the finish in his Impreza WRC. Euan Thorburn was 3rd in his Focus WRC. Sam Moffett finished in 6th place. Young Jordan Hone was 39th o/a in his Micra and 2nd in his class. This was quite an achievement for Jordan who was co-driven by his father Paul. In Belgium Stephen Wright had a brilliant run to finish 3rd o/a in his Fiesta R5 on the Sezoens Rally. This was a top calibre Belgian Championship event and for Stephen to finish on the podium alongside the top Belgian drivers ‘Fast Freddy’ Loix and Vincent Verschueren was some going!