Once again this Stonethrowers Rally, a counting round of both the Dunlop National Championship and Triton Showers South East series, has attracted a bulging entry. Last year’s winner Jim Harrison, again driving one of Kenny McKinstry’s Impreza WRC S9’s, leads the 151 strong field away. Harrison is locked in what looks now like a four way battle for Dunlop Championship supremacy, his main protagonists being Ray Breen in his Focus WRC, Charlie Donnelly in his Corolla WRC and Kevin Barrett in his Impreza WRC.

These four, one from England, one from Waterford, one from Maynooth and one from Northern Ireland, are now considered to be the only four really capable of taking the title. Defending Champion Niall Maguire has pulled out of this rally after hurting his back. Patrick Elliott was also in the Dunlop Championship frame, and indeed led the points before his home Cavan round, but he has been sidelined because of sickness, shingles to be precise, to leave the title fight, realistically, between Harrison, Breen, Donnelly and Barrett. There are other good drivers at the head of the field today who will be fighting for top positions here, but it’s these four who will really be under the spotlight. This is the 7^th of the 10 Dunlop rounds, eight to count, and dropped scores have to be taken into account, but the winner here today, if he comes from these four, will do himself no Championship harm at all.

Ray Breen commented before the start, “I’m very happy with the Focus, the engineers at M-Sport are really good at getting the diff settings and so on just the way I want. The stages are fast certainly, but they are good, and they’ll be very good for the man who is prepared to totally commit to them!” Jim Harrison eased himself into the McKinstry Subaru and commented, “I feel really relaxed about the job. Yes the stages are fast, but that’s alright, they are good.”  Jim went on to say that he hadn’t sat in the car since the last round in Sligo, that Kenny just makes it right for every rally! Kevin Barrett said about his Championship chances, “The car has had a full rebuild, and we are going to give it a go here. In my view the Championship is between Jim and Ray, and a lot of things would have to happen for it to come our way – but you never know. The recce was very wet, and it’s supposed to dry up, but these roads will be very tricky if it’s wet.”

In GpN the main men battling for points will be Willie Fannin, Michael Curran and Alan Ring, Subaru, Lancer and Subaru respectively. There are a host of other GpN drivers likely to be in the frame, including Gabriel Martin,  PJ McGrath, Don Butler, Eamonn Daly, Ian Barrett and James O’Sullivan. Roy White was to appear in his GpN Lancer but has switched to a G3 Escort hired from Eugene Donnelly. This should have meant that local man Roy would have been up against the likes of David James, James Coleman and Liam Wall for ‘two wheel drive’ honours. However the Donnelly Escort G3 blew its engine when Roy, in tandem with Eugene Donnelly, took it for a run up the road behind the home place outside Clonmel. Roy commented, thinking about all his problems with his new GpN Lancer as well, “I must have done something awful bad to someone this year!” 

Principal non-starters, besides Patrick Elliott and Niall Maguire, and now Roy White, include JJ Fleming, Seamus Leonard, Eoin Doyle and Tommy Kiely. The plus side of this is that it allows some of the reserves in, to keep the entry at 151.

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