It is fitting indeed that the outgoing Tarmac Rally Champion Eugene Donnelly, and the about to be crowned Champion, Eamonn Boland, are both in the top line-up for this Cork ‘20’ International, final round of this year’s Global Group Tarmac Championship. Despite undercurrents of the credit crunch affecting rally entries, this Cork ‘20’, sponsored by two of the top competitors, Liam McCarthy & Kieran Murphy, has attracted a varied and exciting entry.
Just some of the icing on the rally cake is that former Tarmac Champion Austin MacHale will be driving the innovative new Opel S2000 as course car. It is interesting that Austin is already looking well down the rally road to the future, although of course in the family team there are still the state of the art Ford Focus WRC’s, with Gareth running at No.1 here in Cork, and Aaron at No.4. Eamonn Boland is at No.2 in his Subaru and Eugene Donnelly (Skoda) at No.3. Former Production World Rally Champion Niall McShea is at 5 in the new Subaru N14. Liam McCarthy is at 8 in his Corolla WRC.
Outside of that are all the top GpN contenders, with just two of the main battles being for top honours for the category in the Tarmac Championship, and the winner of the Irish Evo Challenge will also be decided here in Cork this weekend. Kevin Kelleher and John McGlaughlin are the two drivers battling for the Tarmac GpN honours. In the Evo Challenge it is mainly between two drivers, Alan Carmichael and Brendan Cumiskey. Damien Tourish, who has been a revelation this season following his recovery from an industrial accident earlier this year, has a very outside chance of winning the Challenge.
Also to be decided this weekend is the winner of the Fiesta Sporting Trophy, which will be between current Champion Alistair Fisher and young Welshman Elfyn Evans. Evans is also competing on the McRae Stages, so he will have a bit of a rush to get back in time for the Fiesta start on Sunday. The Juniors also start on Sunday, while the Historics start after the first loop on Saturday and the GpB cars run in front.
Another angle to this Cork ‘20’ is that it is a round of the 023 Tiles Southern 4 Championship. Munster Joinery man Alan Ring is looking good in the series although James M Stafford’s Darrian will surely have the edge on these fast stages. With Alan being in the running for one of the overall awards, Sean Flanagan, with Brian Duggan (rally.ie) on the notes, is in the running for GpN on the 023 Tiles, along with his Impreza team mate Mark Nangle. Both have new engines in their Subarus. Flanagan’s is a state of the art Prodrive one, Nangle’s a standard one from a road car! (Mark reckons he can run this engine on pump fuel, which will leave him more vouchers for tyres!)
Co-driving for Gareth MacHale at the front of the field is Brian Murphy, and Gareth said of the rally “I’m really looking forward to it, the stages are fast, mostly plenty of grip, should be good.” Eamonn Boland was testing his new Subaru on Tuesday at Cooley Mountain, and he’s ready to go. Eugene Donnelly hasn’t been doing nearly as much rallying this year and he reported that he feels really ‘rusty’, but his Skoda feels fantastic! Paddy Toner is co-driving for Eugene.
Late stories include John Corrigan/Claire Shorten in late dramas with their Focus, which has broken its gearbox. Derek McGarrity: Patrick Elliott and PJ. McDermott are non-starters. Stephen McAuley is co-driving for John McGlaughlin. As well as Austin MacHale, Shaun Gallagher is also doing OO duties. He will be driving last year’s Citroen that he drove on the JWRC. This will be a good warm up for next week’s Rally Spain and Shaun is due to fly out of Cork on Sunday evening to Spain.
Provisionally there are 105 starters in the main rally. Finally for now the sad news reached us on Thursday that Rob Arthur has died following illness. Rob was one of the most charismatic co drivers. He guided Jimmy McRae to two of his 7 Circuit of Ireland wins and also sat with Tony Pond, Terry Kaby and many more. He will be sadly missed.
