Irish Notes 18th April 2018

Draperstown’s Marty McCormack, co-driven by David Moynihan in his Skoda Fabia R5, was more than delighted to have won last weekend’s Moonraker Forestry. This was as much for it being the perfect shakedown for the forthcoming Pirelli Rally, opening counter in this year’s British Rally Championship. As for the rally win. “The stages down in Cork were very enjoyable” reported Marty afterwards, “but just as importantly the car was very good. We did make a few changes to the diff set-up at service and that improved the car even more. All in all it was a decent day!” Marty’s win did not interfere with the Valvoline Championship points as he wasn’t registered. So, the maximum score for the day went to 2nd placed crew Barry McKenna/Leon Jordan in their Fiesta R5 and they now lead the series. Barry, originally from Monaghan, but New York based for many years, flies back to Ireland especially for these Valvoline series events.

When we caught up with Barry he was back in New York at his construction company, which specialises in deep piling/foundation work. He was also getting ready for the opening round of the American Rally Championship at Portland, Oregon, where he will drive his Fiesta WRC. Barry commented, ‘The chassis of the Fiesta R5 and the Fiesta WRC car are basically the same, so it is no big deal to switch.” When we expressed the opinion that he would be up against some stern opposition in the shape of David Higgins and Chris Atkinson in the ‘works’ Subarus, Barry surprised us when he replied, “Well, the pace is pretty hot at the top of the Irish Forestry at the moment. Josh Moffett, Andrew Purcell and Marty McCormack are all going hard and great guys as well. We got a bit of a surprise to be on their pace, I couldn’t believe it!”

Barry intends, if everything works out, to contest all 7 rounds of the Valvoline. It was expected before the start of last weekend’s rally in Ballyvourney that the big Championship story would be between Josh Moffett and Andrew Purcell. However that wasn’t to be. Josh’s Fiesta suffered a transmission glitch on only the 2nd stage. He managed to keep going to service, and from 34th place in the classification Josh scythed his way back to 3rd after the eight special stages. Andrew Purcell also had transmission and power steering woes almost from the word go. He wasn’t able to effect repairs and retired. This doesn’t mean that Andrew’s Championship hopes are dashed, but they are certainly dented. He certainly has no luck on the Moonraker. This was about his 6th DNF on the rally. Andrew is 5th in the table. He is now 19pts behind leader McKenna, whose tally is 59. Stephen McCann has also been going very well. He is 2nd on 51. Ger Lucey is 3rd with 47, Josh Moffett 4th with 42. Mickey Conlon rounds off the top half dozen and leads the 2wd with 31. Another driver expected to shine on the Moonraker was Connor McCloskey. However his Fiesta R5 had a big time loss due to a puncture. Connor was co-driven by John Rowan, and John is off this weekend to co-drive for David Bogie on the Speyside in David’s Fabia R5. The pair will then contest the Pirelli International. Some of the drivers who had better fortune than Connor included Eoghain Rogers who won GpN, Shane McGirr took Cl.13 and Mickey Conlon Cl.14, while Derek Mackarel put on a terrific show in his Nova to win the Juniors by 24s from Marty Gallagher (Peugeot 208 R2).

Also last weekend the Dungannon Club ran its lanes rally officially known as ‘The Springfling Targa Rally’. Toyota MR2s filled the top three places, crewed by Robert Woodside/Bruce Drummond who were 1st, followed by Chris Evans/Kevin Fagan and John O’Reilly/Nick Sparks. Not so long ago the MX5 was the car of choice for these events but the top placed Mazda this time was Mark Francis/David Taggart in 5th. Eamonn Byrne/Joanna Lenehen were sandwiched into 4th. They were driving a Starlet.

Dermot Carnegie is another driver who seems to compete on every event possible, and he was 14th on this occasion in his Escort. Some weeks ago Dermot completed the 4 day HERO Winter Challenge, which ran from Le Touquet in Northern France to Monte Carlo, including some snow sections, such as the Col de Turini. Dermot did complete the rally despite his VolvoPV544 having its heater disconnected because of a leaky matrix. Sounds like a chilly trip. The winner, Daniel Gresly, was in a Porsche 911. Switching back to last weekend, Matt Edwards, driving his Fiesta R5, was the provisional winner of the Severn Valley Rallynuts Stages. All the results were provisional until the outcome of a general drugs test and the Rallynuts organisers issued a statement last night (Tues) that the results are now final. Young Josh McErlean used the event as a warm up for his BRC campaign, and co-driven by Aaron Johnson the pair won the R2 class in their Fiesta R2T by just 8 seconds from George Lepley. Maghera driver Martin Laverty had another good finish in his GpN Fiesta.

Looking forward to this weekend, rally fans have a real treat in store with the Monaghan Rally. The club has laid on three fantastic stages close to Monaghan town and been rewarded with a fabulous entry. Considering that the rally is not a counter in the Triton Showers National Championship, just the class based Border series, it is a fair reflection of the regard the club is held. Not only have they received over 120 entries, the head of the leaderboard is a real ‘Who’s Who’ of top drivers – Sam Moffett, Donagh Kelly, Declan Boyle, Josh Moffett, Niall Maguire, Derek McGarrity, Stephen Wright, Kevin Barrett, John O’Donnell and Stuart Darcy in that order make up the top ten in a variety of WRC and R5 machines, with Darcy in his quick Darrian. The stages have loads of tricky bits as well as some fast sections, so it could be anyone’s rally. Having said that, with quite a lot of the action within a stones throw of the Moffett’s back door, the bookies favourite would have to be a ‘Josh or a Sam!’

Also this weekend is a small but extremely significant rally over on the far side of Essex. This is the Corbeau Seats Rally Tendring & Clacton, the very first closed road special stage rally in England, a real landmark. The stages are relatively short, but attractive, utilising country roads. Melvyn Evans in his Subaru WRC is the top seed.
Closer to home, Birr Motor Club, under the direction of Bill Ryan, are running a ‘fun packed’ 2 day Autotest on this Saturday and Sunday. It will be based at Campion Concrete, Kilcotton, Borris in Ossory. The tests will be simple, multi venue and suitable for Endurance, retro and road cars. Saturday sign on is 2.45pm with a 5.00pm start. Sunday sign on is from 10.30am with an 11.30 am start. Sounds like a lot of craic.

The Maiden City Club’s Shackleton Stage Rally is also due to run this Saturday and the club are still issuing a rallying call for marshals – Contact Jude O’Neill 07702259465.

On a slightly different tack, a competition with a difference, last weekend Dubliner Derek Brannigan, who co-drives Stevie Whitford checking gravel notes on the WRC for Kris Meeke, tackled the hugely tough ‘The Race’ in Donegal. This consisted of a 250km route, across mountains such as Muckish, and over many roads on bikes, familiar as special stages such as Atlantic Drive, and with a kayak sea crossing thrown in for good measure. It is exhausting just thinking about it. Derek finished in 15 hours 57 minutes. He commented afterwards “I loved it, loved the competition. A lot of work went into the training. It is such a big event. I had some good people to guide me, Davy Patterson and Kris Meeke. I cleared my head as to what I was doing. Lots of others blew up. I ran the last marathon really well, felt great, and moved up from 7th to 3rd. I felt great afterwards, but then suffered a bit, for example the nails on my left foot are gone! However it was an unbelievable event. I was tucked up in my hotel bed and there were still 40 people still out on the course!” Well done Derek, and also the 67 other brave souls who tackled this unbelievable event. There were several other rally people in the entry, including Ger Callaghan. A lot of money was raised for the chosen charity ‘Gorta Self Help Africa’.

Finally for now, on a somewhat downbeat note, it has been announced that Vauxhall Motors has put all its 326 UK dealers on a 2 year notice that they will be cancelling their contracts. This follows on the takeover of Vauxhall/Opel by Groupe PSA (Peugeot Citroen), as well as a serious drop in Vauxhall sales. Of course for some Vauxhall dealers losing the franchise will not be the end of the world, as selling new cars can be a seriously unprofitable business nowadays. It is all a long way from when DTV (Dealer Team Vauxhall) was a major player in rallying and saloon car racing. Louise Aitken-Walker won the Ladies World Rally Championship in a DTV Astra. Then there was Network Q, an associated company of Vauxhall which was also heavily involved in backing rallying. Of course there will be Vauxhall Dealers after 2020, but there will be a lot less of them, and they will almost certainly be multiple franchises. What with the downturn in diesel car sales, along with government pressure to encourage electric vehicles, there has to be a negative pressure on rallying as we know it. Perhaps progress should now be spelled r-e-t-r-o-g-r-a-d-e!