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RALLY
NEWS NO.1
Killarney/Friday evening ..late..
"I feel I'm on a plus even before this rally
starts" reported last year's winner Eugene Donnelly
as he prepared for this Killarney Rally of the Lakes. The
reason for Eugene's good feeling is that he took his
Corolla WRC out for a run on Tuesday night and after a few
miles it just stopped. It took ages to find that the cause
was a burnt out connection to the fuel pump. Unlike most
modern rally cars, the Corolla does not have a reserve
emergency pump homologated as part of the equipment.
"It could just as easily have happened on Molls Gap,
and that would have been my Rally of the Lakes over"
continued the Maghera man. Eugene went on, "All
during the Circuit of Ireland I was never entirely happy
with the feel of the car. We have discovered since that
the front anti roll bar wasn't set just right. That's been
corrected, and the car feels better, more like the way it
was in Galway. The only downside is that I had to break
off my recce to go to a meeting in Dublin" That was
the first round of the Pirelli Tarmac Championship, the
Circuit was the 2nd, this Lakes event is the 3rd round.
Donnelly was runner up on both events. On the first it was
behind Tapio Laukkanen, the Finnish driver then
non-finishing the Circuit, and is missing here,
non-starting. Derek McGarrity was 3rd in Galway and won
the Circuit, so it is Donnelly and McGarrity sharing the
limelight at the top of the Tarmac points table.
This Lakes is another day, another dollar, and who knows
what dramas will unfold over the two days of high speed
classic asphalt stages. Aside from Donnelly and
McGarrity, top men include Donie O'Sullivan here on his
home patch, plus five times former Tarmac Champion Austin
MacHale, both driving Focus WRC's.
Rarely has this Lakes Rally attracted so much interest as
this year. Some of that is certainly due to a new kid on
the WRC block - George Treacy and a fabulous Peugeot 206
WRC. This is the first of the famous world beating cars to
appear here in private hands. In addition Eamonn Boland is
debuting a proper RHD Mitsubishi WRC - another first here.
Having said that, Eamonn is struggling to make the start -
his new Mitsubishi's engine was damaged in a test session
on Thursday evening and the engineers are burning the
midnight oil to get it going for the rally.
There is a plethora of top drivers and cars - Tim
McNulty for example, his Subaru fully repaired following
big damage when the Impreza landed heavily after a huge
Circuit of Ireland jump is right there in the line-up.
Drivers such as Liam McCarthy in his Corolla WRC, Pete
Doughty and local man Johnny O'Sullivan in Escort WRC's,
JJ Fleming, Barry Coleman, George Cullen, Nigel Hicklin,
all in various Subarus, they'll all be there or
thereabouts in the scramble for top ten position when the
rally gets underway.
Further drivers in difficulty before the start include
Denis Cronin. His Celica blew the new turbo tonight in
testing, and he has had to fit an old one, and has
arranged for scrutineering just before the start. Ollie
O'Donovan was hurt in a motorbike accident on Tuesday on
London's Circular Rd and has two broken ribs. Ollie drove
his Subaru on to-nights Killarney Super Special at the
racecourse but was really struggling, and may not start.
Just one of the incidents at the racecourse was Donie
O'Sullivan denting a rear quarter panel of his Focus WRC.
There was a big crowd of spectators at the racecourse, the
whole thing a great success. Some of the proceeds were
going to Jamie Kent, so badly injured on last autumn's
Cork '20' Jamie is making steady recovery progress and was
flown over to the racecourse by Dermot Healy in his
helicopter.
Mike Marshal has been Clerk of the Course of this rally
for the last 25 years and has handed the reins over to his
wife Noreen. While Mike got a run around the Super Special
with Billy Coleman, Noreen took time out to tell us,
"I'm a little tense, there are a lot of cars doing
this rally!" A lot of cars indeed. There are plenty
of interesting angles. GpN, all the classes, the modifieds,
the historics, the Juniors on Sunday afternoon, the
wonderful GpB cars - it certainly has all the
makings of a fabulous May Bank Holiday of rallying here in
Killarney. More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON
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