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| Mourne Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Newry Start - Saturday @ 09:01:05 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Saturday/Modern Tyres/Newry
Today’s Newry and District Motor Club’s Modern Tyres backed Mourne Rally is round 5 of the Carryduff Forklifts Mourne Rally. Tarmac Champion Darren Gass, with Enda Sherry co-driving, heads the entry in his Subaru. Darren hasn’t had the best of runs so far this year, so not only does he really want to win his local rally again, he also desperately desires to return to the form that saw him the Galway International last season and on to his Tarmac Champion title. Current Championship points leader Derek McGarrity is the No.2 seed of this strong entry. In a surprise move Glengormley man McGarrity has switched from his Subaru to an ex Pieter Tsjoen Belgian Championship winning Ford Focus WRC. The car arrived into McGarrity’s workshop a few days ago, and he has only driven it for a couple of miles close to home.
As he worked his way through his recce of the stages, McGarrity commented. “It seems like a good car, but I’ll need about 20 litres of water, for myself. It’s the hottest car, especially with this weather, I’ve ever sat in. It should take about 2 stone off (co-driver) McKee here – no bad thing!” Former Circuit of Ireland winner McGarrity continued, “I really want to try the car here, and then make a decision whether to drive it in Donegal, or the Subaru S14. I really bought the Focus with the view of hiring it out for Donegal, but the deal fell through.” When asked about the stages that C of C Jan Huisman has laid out, Derek continued, “There is a lot of driving in them. The first stage is very tricky, lots of gravel. The third one I know bits of from the Circuit of Ireland."
Behind McGarrity is Derek McGeehan at No.3 in his Mini WRC. Draperstown man Derek feels that the stage roads could be a bit narrow for his car, but otherwise he is happy enough. Bangor man Michael Orr, more usually seen on the World Rally Championship, is co-driving for Derek again. Derek lies 2nd in the NI Championship points, and he will be another really anxious for a top result here. Next up in the list is Maynooth’s Kevin Barrett, with Sean Mullally co-driving in his Subaru.
Camillus Bradley/Danny O’Neill and Frank Kelly/Stephen Quinn make up the top six, both in Escorts. Camillus put up a superb performance to finish 3rd on the last NI Championship round, his home Sperrins event. He is hoping for a repeat performance here, but apart from Frank Kelly, there is a superb line up of Escort crews who will also be bidding for glory. The tight bumpy nature of the stages could just suit the Escorts down to the ground.
Highest GpN seed is Armagh man Damien Toner in his Lancer at No.11, while event sponsor Rory Byrne is 2nd in the GpN line up at No.14. Rory drives his interesting new ‘JRM’ built Lancer Evo 10 and has already achieved a step up in his pace with this new car. Stephen Shaw, who now works for Modern Tyres, is co-driving – and this will be his first time co-driving for Rory. Indeed it is Stephen’s first rally. He certainly didn’t pick an easy one to start with, the stages are so busy that the notes will need to be coming at about a million miles an hour! Just some of the other interesting entries today include Alan Nesbitt of the Gosford Rd Service Station (a good place for a cup of tea as well some fuel) making a rally return in his Mk2 Escort. And Jim Feenan of Formula Karting returns to the stages as well in his Escort Cosworth WRC – the car that Peadar Hurson has been driving this year. Despite having hurt his back, Ray Brammer has made the trip from Norfolk and starts at No.18 in his Impreza WRC. Changes to entry include John O’Donnell, who was to have been at No.15 in his Impreza WRC, non-starting.
Finally for now, one of the ‘00’ cars will be Treyan Spiers, co-driven by Billy Regan. Trevan’s father was the highly regarded long time rallyman Alyn Spiers who sadly passed away three weeks ago and will be very much missed. Treyan is driving Alyn’s Peugeot 106 today as a tribute.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net *Follow RallyNews on Twitter @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
ASSOCIATE RALLY SPONSOR – MS MOTORSPORT
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