This Todds Leap Ulster Rally again brings together the Irish Tarmac and the British Rally Championships, which this time has created a fascinating entry. Sometimes in this situation of the two series meeting, the rallies concerned can be a bit of a damp squib. Not so this time. The entry does look absolutely fascinating, and there are drivers and cars right down through the top 40 entries who could feature strongly in the leaderboard before the sixteen fast but tough asphalt stages draw to a conclusion on Saturday afternoon back in Armagh. Winning the rally is a different matter of course than getting into the top ten. In theory it’s got to be one of the Irish drivers in their World Rally Cars at the top of the list, but drivers such as Mark Higgins, Guy Wilks and Gwyndaf Evans are extraordinary in the way they can cover ground, these latest so called ‘production’ cars stunningly fast.
Eamonn Boland in his fabulous Subaru will lead the field away, the Wexford man just having to put the final piece of the jigsaw together to take the Tarmac Title, almost a formality really, of tying up the Global Group Tarmac Championship. The Tesco 99 British Championship is, on the other hand, still in a great deal of flux. David Higgins may lead the points, but with dropped scores coming into play Mark Higgins is looking good. In the Teams battle Mitsubishi is pulling out all the stops and Guy Wilks will be flat out for a maximum score and of course Gwyndaf Evans, who has been drafted in to replace Phillip Morrow, is no stranger to success on the Ulster.
Current Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly was to be at 2, but he can’t make it, so next up is Kevin Lynch in a Subaru similar to Boland’s S12b. Lynch has won a stunning array of National rallies, and is fresh from his fifth win on the difficult Lurgan Park event. Kevin has never won the Ulster, indeed never won a round of the Tarmac series, so he will be extra determined this weekend. Interestingly, the next 3 drivers on the list, Kenny McKinstry, Peadar Hurson and Derek McGarrity, also have not won their home International, so they will all be giving this event a real go. Mark Higgins, Guy Wilks, Gwyndaf Evans and David Higgins round off the top 10. As we said earlier, virtually any of the first 40 cars could feature on the leaderboard.
Some changes to entry include, apart from Eugene Donnelly non-starting, James Cullen and Colm Murphy have withdrawn from the top 20. Ian Roche, Paul Manton and Kieran Marshall are all non-starters. Simon Jean-Joseph has been replaced by Sebastien Ogier in the new Citron C2R2 Max. Stuart Jones in the MG2000 has been re-seeded to run behind Darren Gass. Robert Swann in the Geoff Jones Subaru and also Brian O’Mahony in his Clio are moved up to run in the mid twenties on the start list. Richard Cathcart is non-starting. Martin Brady, who was to have co-driven for Richard, is now with Danny Barry. Seamus Leonard has had some revisions to his new GpN Lancer and is delighted with the new car. Gwyndaf Evans has Paul Nagle co-driving. Nik Elsmore had food poisoning yesterday and had to cut his recce short. Neil McCance has Sean Ferris co-driving. Stefan Davis has crashed his Puma on the “test” stage and will be hard pushed to get the car ready for the start. Wyn Humphreys has had his Subaru stolen during the night and there is still no sign of it this morning.
The National Rally runs immediately behind the International and will miss the first 3 and the last 3 stages of the rally. Camillus Bradley and Adrian Hetherington are the top 2 seeds in their Escorts but we believe Craig Bennett, who was to be 3rd on the road, has gearbox troubles with his Metro 6R4 and will not start.
