RallyNews No.1                                        Kilmore Hotel Sunday 10.30am

Aaron MacHale and co driver Killian Duffy will head this capacity field away from the Hotel Kilmore start at 11.10 opening proceedings for this year’s Cavan Stages Rally.  Following his impressive first national championship win in Carlow 2 weeks ago, the Focus WRC driver will be keen to repeat the performance here.  By contrast the Carlow stages were mainly fast and flowing suiting the Ford well, the stages here in Cavan are much more difficult, twisty, narrow and very technical, a challenge to all the drivers.  We also have a full complement of Dunlop Championship contenders including former champion Ray Breen who returns to the fray with Andrew Purcell once again calling the notes, this pairing of course taking the Dunlop title two years ago .  Any one of the top ten drivers could win here today such is the level of competition in the Dunlop series at the moment.   

Patrick Elliott is on home turf and has been driving at the top of his game in recent months and is surely a serious contender today in his Elliott construction Impreza.  Patrick is once again using his older S10 model as his S11 is still being rebuilt following his Rally of the Lakes accident.  Championship leader Glenn Allen is fresh from his second place on last weekend’s Tour of the Sperrins and there is no doubt that today’s tight and twisty stages should suit the Cookstown drivers Corolla WRC and today could be the day that Allen and co driver Damien Connolly spring a surprise.  Former national champions Niall Maguire and Michael Barrable have both shown an impressive turn of speed of late.  Barrable almost took victory in Carlow while Monaghan man Maguire is once again setting fastest times in his slightly older model Impreza WRC.  The only major entry missing from the top bunch is Adrian McElvaney who was unable to get his Impreza ready on time. 

The GpN battle today should be just as closely fought as several of the leading runners are just swapping seconds as they battle it out on the stage.  Michael Curran is the top GpN seed in his Lancer but the man making all the headlines at the moment is Seamus Leonard.  Leonard took the GpN win in Carlow and as such has sacrificed his Tarmac championship campaign by missing out on the Jim Clarke Rally to be here in Cavan this weekend and will certainly be the benchmark driver as he tends to thrive on these narrow and twisty types of stages.    Willie Fannin has a new co driver in for the day in the shape of Martin Costello while behind him drivers such as Alan Ring, the Kelleher brothers and Ian Barrett are all knocking on the door of a GpN win.   

The third element to today’s rally is undoubtedly the modifieds and the battle to be top 2wd.  Gary McPhillips is the leading entry and somewhat justified after his recent barn storming drive in Monaghan when he got his Escort into the top ten.  Equally Wesley Patterson almost took the Mk2 challenge in Carlow and throw in people like Gordon Rodgers, Anthony O’Hallaran and even further down somebody like Aiden Toner all in their respective Mk2s and there should be some show from these guys today.  131 cars will take the start with 3 stages done three times with the service area based just beside the hotel Kilmore.  More News Later from the end of the first stage ….  Michael Patterson and Zoe Todd