RALLY NEWS NO.1 Skibbereen/Sunday morning…very early..

Jim Harrison, last year’s winner of this Fastnet Rally, leads a fabulous entry for this year’s tough 8 stage event. Harrison again drives a McKinstry Impreza`WRC, and although he has had a spate of rally mishaps, and indeed took a bit of a sabbatical from the sport, he should still be a pace-setter today. All year the drivers have been battling for Dunlop Championship honours. The overall title has now been secured by Ray Breen in his Focus WRC, so in a way the pressure is off the Waterford man, and possibly he can relax a bit today. That doesn’t mean of course that he will be going any slower! Harrison’s Subaru has been completely rebuilt by Johnny in McKinstry’s and is absolutely mint. Breen’s Focus WRC is also in fabulous shape, well checked over since finishing 2nd in Clare a few weeks ago when he clinched the Dunlop championship.

West Cork winner Denis Cronin is at No.3 in his Subaru, Denis saying that he has got the car handling just the way he wants it, so he could be a real force to be reckoned with here on his home stages. This is the final round of the 023 Tiles championship and Denis has already clinched the overall title. Liam McCarthy/Kieran Murphy were to be at No.4 in their Corolla WRC, but unfortunately due to work commitments can’t make the start. Patrick Elliott is at 5 in his Subaru. Cavan man Patrick was forced to take quite a long break from rallying because of illness, so it’s great to see him back even though he is suffering from a touch of flu. Kevin Barrett is at 6 in a new Impreza WRC S9. An ex Boland car, this is Kevin’s first run out in it so hopefully will go well. Kevin can tie up 3rd in the championship today if things go well.

Welshman Melvyn Evans is at No.7, his Impreza WRC in fine fettle, having won an event over Epynt a few weeks ago. Tony Davies is a welcome visitor at No.8 in his Impreza WRC. While Hugh Martin Doherty makes the long trip down from North West Donegal to run at No.9 in his Impreza WRC. Nigel Hicklin is at 10 in yet another Subaru.

Just outside the top 10 are the top group N runners spearheaded by young Michael Curran in his Lancer. Curran is on course to clinch group N in the Dunlop series, the two drivers behind, Willie Fannin and Alan Ring, in theory being able to deprive him of the title, but that would be a very long shot. 023 Tiles man James O’Sullivan is at 14 in his Lancer. Clonakilty’s Kevin Kelleher at 15 has his fingers crossed that a brake problem on his Lancer has been fixed. While Rosscarbery’s Kieran O’Callaghan at 16 reports a bad misfire in his Lancer. Kieran is hopeful that it is just a faulty spark plug and that he will get it sorted before the start. Owen Murphy (Lancer) PJ McGrath (Impreza) and Tom Randles (Celica) make up the top 20. Jer O’Donovan was to be at 19 but he hasn’t made it.

Anthony O’Halloran at 21 is in the first of the 2 wheel drive cars, Anthony having rebuilt his Manta engine since winning his class in Clare where the unit was devouring a gallon of oil every few stages. Anthony runs in class 13 while just behind is Wesley Patterson in his Escort who spearheads the class 14 runners. At 25 is Brian O’Mahony in his Ford Puma while Ken O’Neill at 25 drives a similar class 6 Ford. Brian has won his class on the British championship and the Tarmac championship while Ken has won his class in the Dunlop series, so these two should have an interesting battle.

There are lots of more noteworthy drivers and cars in the entry list – just a few that we will mention now include: Cyril McCullough at 34 is the workshop manager for Prospeed in England and he drives a Skoda Octavia WRC from his own workshop. Liam Egan at No.35 has made the trip from New York to drive Charlie & Eugene Donnelly’s Corolla WRC. The Donnellys have another car hired out, Eugene’s fabulous Escort G3, to Clonakilty’s Vincent Bennett. We mentioned above about young Michael Curran bidding to win the Patterson RallyNews Group N Award on the Dunlop series. Michael’s father Dickie is entered at 153 in a new Group N Mitsubishi Lancer 8.5. Just some of the other reserves who are getting a run include Emily O’Mahony in her new group N Impreza and Tadgh Linehan in his group N Subaru.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net

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