Today’s rally is round 3 of the Dunlop National Championship as well as being the 2nd counter in this year’s Border series. As such the event has attracted not just a stunning array of World Rally and GpN machinery, but also a brilliant line-up of modified cars.

Current Dunlop National Champion Ray Breen will lead the field away in his Focus WRC, closely followed by this season points leader Charlie Donnelly in his Corolla WRC, with Patrick Elliott 3rd in the line with his Impreza WRC S!0. Last year’s winner Adrian McElvaney is at 4, Niall Maguire, five times the winner of this Monaghan Stages is at 5 and Glenn Allen is at 6 in his Corolla WRC.

Kevin Barrett, Michael Barrable, Sean Devine, Aaron McHale, Martin Doherty and Hugh Martin Doherty make up the top dozen, and all drive World Rally Cars. Then we move in to the GpN machinery, headed by Alan Ring in his Impreza N12, with Willie Fannin directly behind. Willie is debuting his new Impreza N12 this weekend, and had a test session with the car on Friday and reported that there were a few details, such as the ‘anti-lag’ to be sorted, but overall it seems a good car.

Behind these two is Frank Wray in his GpN Lancer, and then a horde of modified cars, headed by the unbelievably quick Mark Alcorn in his Corolla twin-cam. Behind Letterkenny’s Alcorn is local man Maurice Moffett in his rear-wheel drive Starlet. Maurice is another hoping for a dry rally, as he reckons he will be totally out-gunned if it rains. Maurice discovered a cracked brake disc on his Starlet, the same type disc as fitted to a Metro 6R4. That is now sorted, and Maurice is raring to go.

Interestingly Maurice’s young son Richard has started to rally, and he is in the Junior section, joining in after stage 5. Maurice’s daughter Laura is co-driving for Vincent McAree, while Niall Maguire’s son Conor is co-driving for Gerry Cassidy at 40. Tony Kelly’s daughter Toni is driving her own Civic at J14 and there are lots more following in the family footsteps!

Anyway, back to the story at the front - following his ‘recce’ yesterday, Charlie Donnelly commented about the stages today – “It’ll be fantastic if they are dry, but treacherous if wet. I’ll be depending totally on Eugene to mark up the slippy bits. Really, it will make it a totally different rally. The Corolla is fine after the Circuit, just checked over and different settings dialled in.” No.1 seed Ray Breen said. “The Focus is just the same as it was in Kerry, we haven’t had any real chance to test but it should be OK. I think the stages are good and I’m in good form. There is lots of driving in the stages, its fingers crossed now”. No.3 seed Patrick Elliott reports all well with his Subaru. Adrian McElvaney’s Impreza WRC has been repaired since the incident in the Midland Rally where Adrian got caught out in torrential rain, sliding straight on at a junction at the end of a 500 yard straight. The car was slightly damaged and there was a small fire but all is now repaired. Niall Maguire at No.5 is in top form and looking forward to his home rally. Glenn Allen has been having all sorts of problems with his Corolla’s ECU computer. This would appear to have actually been down to a wiring loom problem. Anyway, it seems to be corrected.

Kevin Barrett at No.7 is just happy enough to get out on a rally again following his unfortunately experience in Catalunya. Michael Barrable at No.8 is hoping for a good run having had such a miserable time In Kerry. It would appear there was a misunderstanding over the settings of his Focus WRC and he’s hoping it will be a whole lot better for today, although he hasn’t had a chance to do any testing. Sean Devine at 9 has Damien Duffin co-driving, Strabane man Sean telling us that the gearbox trouble on the Circuit was down to a little bar in the gear change mechanism being broken. Aaron MacHale rounds off the top 10 in his Corolla WRC. There are no real changes to the top end of the entry list. Kevin & Martin Kelleher, although keeping No.24 on their Lancer, start behind No.16 and Gabriel Martin (No.30) starts behind Kelleher. The Kelleher brothers lead Group N in the Dunlop series, just ahead of Alan Ring. More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net