The rally is up and running!! Three years since the last Circuit, eighteen months on since the last Tarmac Championship Rally, the show is on the road again. All the razzmatazz of Ireland’s top rally championship is here in Enniskillen. Sadly, some of the favourite faces aren’t – Bertie Fisher, Mark, Frank Meagher and several more. The nature of the game is of course to go on ahead.

Austin McHale leads the 125 cars in the main rally, the Dubliner driving a new car this weekend, an ex Manfred Stohl Corolla WRC. Austin remarked at the buzzing Lakeland Forum scrutiny, "We had a run in the car at Mondello through the week. I wanted to get it into the Wicklow Hills the next morning but we spent the time altering the suspension set-up." On the suspension theme, current Tarmac Champion Champion Andrew Nesbitt said, "We were testing the new car and the Pirelli tyres up at Cooley mountain. It went well. But Cooley is not the same character as the stages, which are jumpy,tight, bumpy. I couldn’t replicate those conditions, so it will take a couple of stages to settle in. The car overall seems a good package. It has a sequential gearchange, which I haven’t used before, and the suspension set up is different." Niall Maguire drives Andrew’s Championship winning car, Niall in top form after winning the Mayo stages rally a couple of weeks ago. Niall, along with drivers such as Kevin Barrett in the Triton Showers Subaru and Peader Hurson, are just some of many drivers ready to pounce should any of the establishment, McHale, McGarrity, Doherty, Boland, Greer, falter.

Nesbitt continued, "Running at 7 does not bother me at all, while I get used to the new car. My deal to do the rally was very last minute, and it was good of the Ulster Automobile Club organisers to keep the entry open." Austin McHale went on, "I’m really looking forward to the rally. The new car is much more powerful than the RHD one. I was a bit surprised at the weight of the car, 30 Kgs over the limit. It must be the active transmission which has put the weight up." On the subject of weight, McGarrity’s Subaru was under the limit. The engineers had been working for nearly 24 hours to try and sort out a problem with the car’s active transmission brain/gear selector readout, and hadn’t replaced the sump and other guards. That wasn’t long sorted. McGarrity commented about the rally, "I think the stages are fine. I’m really looking forward to it. It doesn’t look as if we will be able to get this problem sorted with the transmission, but we’ll just get on with it" So it goes on, last minute dramas all part of rallying.