RALLY NEWS NO.2 Silver Springs Hotel Cork/Saturday 4pm
This weekend’s Orchard Motorsport Cork ‘20’ International, final round of the 2011 Tarmac Championship, marks the end of a long tough season for the leading protagonists. Three crews, Tim McNulty/Paul Kiely, Kevin Barrett/Sean Mullally and Darragh O’Riordan/Tony McDaid, can win the overall title. All three are in Subaru Imprezas. It should be an interesting contest. McNulty is probably the favourite, and as the crews relaxed in the Silver Springs Hotel before the run out to the first stage at Rathcormack, Tim said. “It looks as if it is going to be wet for tonight’s stages but that doesn’t really worry me. We will drive to the notes and keep our eyes open and it’s fingers crossed”.
Clerk of the Course Colman Hegarty has laid on a tough course with some long fast East Cork stages tonight in darkness. In addition tonight there is a spectator stage around the car parks of Cork Euro Mart at Rathcormack where the service area is also located. On Sunday there are 8 classic challenging stages near Macroom and Ballyvourney. The service area on Sunday is at Macroom.
Daragh O’Riordan is No.3 in his Impreza WRC and he will be doing his utmost to uphold local honours. Midleton man Daragh has Tony McDaid co-driving. The pair gave an ample demonstration of their capability in taking victory on the classic Killarney Rally of the Lakes earlier this year.
Behind the three World Rally Cars at the front is West Cork Rally winner Robert Barrable in his state of the art Fabia S2000, and then at 5 is Rally NI winner Garry Jennings in his Lancer. Sam Moffett, also in a Mitsubishi, is at 6. Alan Ring is at No.7 in the Munster Joinery Lancer and Colm Murphy is at 8 in his GpN Impreza. Moffett, Ring and Garry Jennings can all win the GpN Tarmac title this weekend. Also in with a chance is Liam Egan who is seeded at No.32 in his GpN Impreza. Liam has once again made the trip from New York to compete here. Another Cork driver, Brian O’Mahony, is seeded at 9. Brian is a former British Junior Champion but hasn’t really rallied this year. He is very much in at the deep end this weekend as he is driving a McKinstry Impreza WRC for the first time. Willie Mavitty rounds off the top 10 in his Lancer.
Roy White was to have been at No.11 in the FESP backed MG S2000 but unfortunately the car suffered a broken centre differential in testing this week and cannot be repaired in time. Highest seeded 2wd crew are Raymond Conlon/Darren McCague in their Corolla with the highest placed Escort driver being David Armstrong at 15. Eugene Meegan is a late entry and will carry No.68 on his Mitsubishi Evo 10 but will run 11th on the road. Brian Sharkey is co-driving.
The rally is a round of the Citroen Racing Trophy and 8 Citroen C2R2s are entered. Scott McElhinney/Karl Reid have already won the title but there promises to be great battle for the runner-up spots that also carry substantial prize money.
60 cars will start the main rally. In addition there are 5 Historics headed by Denis & Dan Moynihan in their Escort. The Historics will run first on the road. There is also 20 crews entered in the Junior section and they will start on Sunday morning.
More news from service: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
