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Irish Notes
by Brian & Liz Patterson |
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Donegal’s Joe McGonigle was one happy man last weekend, as he powered his Skoda S2000 to a tie-break victory over Derek McGarrity at Shackleton. Derek was having the first drive in his newly acquired Impreza N16.
Not so happy were Kris Meeke, Craig Breen and Daniel McKenna on Rally Finland. Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle did have a very good rally for the best part of two days, holding 3rd place and within a whisker of the two leading Volkswagens, until Kris got caught out in the rain on a wet Saturday afternoon stage and his DS3WRC slithered into an unforgiving Finnish tree. The resultant broken suspension meant Kris and Paul were relegated to ‘Rally 2’ for the final day, where they managed 3rd on the power stage. Craig Breen was sidelined early when his Peugeot sustained oil pressure maladies. The Daniel McKenna Citroen suffered a damaged radiator and subsequent overheated engine. So it was a bit of an ‘oh dear’ weekend in Finland for our drivers.
Not so for Latvala though. He drove an absolutely brilliant rally, as did his VW World Champion teammate Ogier. Mads Ostberg was 3rd in his Citroen. Thierry Neuville was 4th, having talked about a certain lack of lateral grip with his Hyundai. Ott Tanak and Juho Hanninen rounded off the top half dozen in their respective Fiesta WRC’s. Esapekka Lappi produced an outstanding drive and was the winner of RC2 as well as 8th o/a in his Skoda R5.
Here at home, Alan McGeehan, driving the ‘family’ LHD Mini WRC for the first time on the Maiden City MC’s Dogleap Rally, built up a decent lead through the day and started the final stage well in front. However two spins and a stall then cost a lot of time.
2015 Dogleap Rally Winners, Joe McGonigle, with Ciaran Geaney co-driving. © Gerry O'Doherty |
Joe McGonigle, with Ciaran Geaney co-driving, was fastest on that last stage to draw level with Derek McGarrity. NI Champion McGarrity was driving a very tasty Impreza N16 for the first time. The tie break was the higher number of faster times, which meant McGonigle taking the win. Alan McGeehan was a disappointed 3rd, Mark Massey on his first trip in a WRC car 4th, Callum Devine a very accomplished 5th in his R2 Opel Adam and John Bonner was best of the Escorts in 6th. Alastair Cochrane finished equal with Bonner, the latter getting the nod on the tie break. Interestingly, young William Creighton finished 11th o/a in his recently acquired Peugeot 208 R2 and was in the top 6 or 7 times through the final two wet stages.
On the Tyneside Stages, Simon Maugher, driving a Metro 4M4 scored a narrow victory over Damian Cole, who was out in a new Fiesta WRC. The rally was round 4 of the REIS National Asphalt Championship. Alex Laffey was 3rd in his Fiesta R5+. Steve Simpson was in the hunt until he damaged one of his Subaru’s wheels against a rock. The Metro 4M4 that Simon Mauger is driving has been developed by Dennis Marshal and runs a Millington Diamond engine and a sequential box. Simon Maugher is of course an outstanding driver, but the car seems to be pretty special as well.
This weekend the home rally action is concentrated on Clonmel and the Stonethrowers event. Despite being on an opt-out year from the National Championship, the rally has still attracted a decent entry. Steve Wood is making the trip from Wales to compete in his Subaru. Daragh O’Riordan heads the list in his Fiesta WRC from Josh Moffett in his similar car. This will be Josh’s first outing since his accident in Belgium, and this will be a good shakedown as well for the Ulster. Steve Wood is provisionally at 3, Mick O’Brien in his Focus WRC at 4, then it is Desi Henry in his Skoda S2000, with Daniel Cronin (Impreza WRC) rounding off the top half dozen. Then there are three top Escorts on the menu – Pat Donegan, Enda O’Brien and Mickey Conlon. Don Keating and Pat O’Connell are at 10 & 11 (Impreza and Lancer). The club has received 80 plus entries and hopefully there will be a few more before the weekend. Kenny McKinstry is tipped to be making a last minute entry to drive his Impreza WRC S14. CoC John Ward has selected some new stage mileage and the event looks as if it will be very enjoyable indeed.
The Todds Leap Ulster Rally is now getting into gear for the 14/15th August weekend, and the entry looks as if it will stretch to around 100 cars. Derek McGarrity/Diarmuid Falvey (Subaru) are a recent addition to the ‘National A’ section while Daniel McKenna/Gordon Noble in the Toyota GT86 will add spice to the National B part of the rally. The Ulster is a round of the Clonakilty Black Pudding Tarmac Championship, the McGrady Insurance NI Championship, plus various Historic Championships, which means that there will be a wide variety of cars and drivers on the rally. In line with the latest recommendations, National A & B and Historics will all run together, seeded by previous performance.
There is a Tarmac Junior section which will be slotted in on the Saturday to cover 6 of the 8 Saturday stages. The R2 class should again provide plenty of interest – Rob Duggan in his new Peugeot R2 is now in a very strong position, although Jon Armstrong is expected to be very quick over his home stages. As well as being a strong contender for the ‘R2 Road to Wales’ award, 22 year old Killarney man Duggan has been nominated for the MI Billy Coleman Young Rally Driver of the Year Award.
On the wider front, following another meeting last week between the Tarmac Championship organisers and various competitors to discuss new guidelines to exclude WRC cars from winning next year’s Tarmac series, the end result seems to indicate a rift opening up in Irish rallying with the news that at least one rally, Donegal, is planning to opt out of the Tarmac series. It is to be hoped that this does not happen, and the situation can be resolved to keep everyone on board. The situation this year is that Donagh Kelly/Kevin Flanagan are now looking odds on for the Tarmac title and have only to get their Focus WRC to the finish in Enniskillen to clinch the championship. Could this be the last WRC car to win the title? The race is never over ‘til it is over of course, and Sam Moffett could mathematically take this year’s Tarmac title, but even he would admit that would be a long shot. The final round of the Tarmac is the 3rd/4th Oct Acesigns Cork ‘20’ Rally, this year based at Radisson Blu in Little Island, East of Cork City. C of C Colman Hegarty has released the regulations for the event in good time, and they can be accessed at munstercarclub.com or by contact with the event secretary Margaret Browne at +353 87 668 7269. Entries submitted before August the 31st will be entered into a draw that includes a free entry among other things.
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