RALLY NEWS No.1 - Killarney Town Centre - Friday @ 18:52:45
RALLY NEWS NO.1 Killarney/Friday evening 19.30
The ceremonial start for this Cartell.ie backed Killarney Rally of the Lakes marks the opener for this 37th edition of ‘The Lakes’. Once again the rally has attracted a competitive and attractive entry, with drivers travelling from many different parts of the world to compete and enjoy the fabulous Kerry roads that make up the 16 closed road Special Stages. It is not just the rallying of course that is the big attraction - there is the matter of the special ambience and ‘craic’ of Killarney over the Bank Holiday weekend to savour as well.
Last year’s Lakes winner Donagh Kelly, with Conor Foley co-driving this time in Donagh’s fabulous Ford Focus WRC went on last year from here to win the Clonakilty Blackpudding Tarmac Championship. Well, the rules have changed this year and although Donegal man Donagh can’t win the Championship outright, he could opt for the Tarmac WRC Trophy if he signed up before the start of this event. His main WRC opposition this time is probably going to be Garry Jennings/Rory Kennedy in their Impreza WRC. Speaking before the rally, Garry said that he was here really because he enjoys the rally and the atmosphere. Garry’s Subaru has had somewhat of a re-vamp since it’s last outing in West Cork, and he promises to give it a good go this time to redress the balance.
If the World Rally Car drivers have lost the impetus to contest the Tarmac Championship, the opposite is true for the mostly younger competitors in their new breed of ‘R5’ cars – 1600cc turbocharged state of the art but still supposedly cost effective ‘pocket rockets’. Keith Cronin, Sam Moffett, Alastair Fisher Stephen Wright, Joe McGonigle and Josh Moffett are the six young drivers from the top ten seeds who will be fighting tooth and nail this weekend for Tarmac Championship points. All five are rallying high achievers and the pace they seem to be able to extract from these cars is at times staggering. Indeed on some stages they could beat the World Rally Cars.
There are several more top drivers in R5 type cars not so far mentioned – Castleisland man Alan Ring for example will surely fly here on his home stages with his R5 Fiesta (the car now fully International compliant having been re-jigged since it’s West Cork outing). Cork’s Owen Murphy has still to come to grips with his recently acquired ex works Skoda S2000, so could this be the weekend when it all comes together for former forestry champion Owen? Aaron MacHale, Joe Connolly and John Mulholland are three further drivers in class 5 machinery who could figure before this anticipated tough weekend’s rallying is played out.
The GpN category cars, although now somewhat on the wane, still have an important part to play in the Tarmac Championship. Clonakilty’s David Guest will probably be the lead player, with drivers such as Brian O’Keefe, Paul Barrett, Gus and Pat Kearney, Peter O’Kane and a few more all promising to fight for position.
Behind the leading homologated cars at the front there is a strong line-up of modified machinery, mostly Escorts and Civics, with the an occasional touch of extra glamour from a few BMW’s, and they too should be in the thick of the action. Further down the field there are some extremely talented young drivers in the small in capacity but big in stature R2 cars – Cal McCarthy, Marty Gallagher, Fraser Mulholland, John Byrnes, Callum Devine and William Creighton spring to mind. There is also an unknown quantity names Meeke from Co.Tyrone in a Fiesta R2… Barry Meeke. Yes, there should be plenty to entertain this weekend on the Killarney Rally of the Lakes!
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