RALLY NEWS NO.1 Banna Beach/Sunday morning early

To-day’s rally promises to be a fast and furious affair. There’s a lot at stake, in terms of prestige, local honour, as well as deciding who takes the overall and class honours in the Top Part West Coast Championship, today’s rally being this year’s final round.

Indeed it is the two favourites for the West Coast Championship, Noel Redmond and Alan Ring, who are 1st and 2nd on the road this morning. As WRC cars are not allowed on ‘Mini Stages’ such as this one, Redmond has switched from his usual Subaru to Adrian McElvaney’s GpA Impreza. Redmond’s co-driver is local man Diarmuid Falvey, and what wouldn’t he give to win this Bio-Tech and Banna Beach backed Kerry Stages Rally.

Redmond was hoping for a test session in the McElvaney Impreza`yesterday, that didn’t happen, so he’s in at the deep end, testing on the way to the first stage! Alan Ring is driving his usual Impreza, and although in theory it is ‘only’ a GpN car, in point of fact it is a very potent machine indeed, and Munster Joinery man Ring knows his car inside out. On paper Ring leads the points, but when dropped scores are taken into account, the door is open for Redmond. First though, Redmond has to finish the rally. That is not always easy over this Kerry territory.

Behind the leading two are some very competent drivers indeed. Clonakilty’s Kevin Kelleher showed real speed in winning GpN on this year’s West Cork, they hold the Johnny White Trophy for their performance here last year, and should go well in their Lancer here. At 4 is Mike Quinn in his Class 14 two wheel drive Escort. Local man Sean won the inaugural Donal O’Flaherty Trophy here last year, and he’ll not give that up without a fight! Rathkeale’s Eamonn Daly starts at 5 in his GpN Lancer, while event sponsor Tadgh Linehan is at 6 in his GpN Bio-Tech GpN Impreza. Tadgh is another who really could get a good result here. He’ll certainly be going for it!

Kells man Pat Donegan is at 7 in his Escort. Pat, winner of many single stage events, the latest being the Suirway Forklifts, tells us his Escort is going well, but will be even better in a few weeks time when he gets a new Mountune engine for the Killarney Historic. Donegal man Joe McHugh is at 8. Joe maintains this is an outdated car, but it should be a quick bit of kit in this company. David McNulty was to be at 9, but he is non-starting, so James Coleman makes up the top ten in his potent Gareth Lloyd prepared Escort, while McHugh is more or less sure now of his class in the West Coast Championship.

Some pre-event stories include……Tom Randles has discovered some damaged wires in his Celica’s loom, which were telling the car to go into ‘safe’ mode. This is now fixed, and the car is flying! Diarmuid Lynch is co-driving as usual. Killarney’s Dave Slattery is bedding a new engine into his Escort this weekend – should be a lot quicker and is hoping for a good run in preparation for the Killarney Historics… Martin Ward has had a last minute rush getting an engine into his BMW M3.. The paperwork for John Hickey’s new 4x4 Escort isn’t ready, so John will drive a GpN Impreza, with John Young co-driving. Andrew Purcell’s hired Lancer ingested something through the turbo yesterday in testing, and it would appear that the car will not be fit for the rally. Further non-starters include Ken O’Neill and James Stafford.

More news after stage 1. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net