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| Galway Summer Rally |
| RALLY NEWS No.1 - Pre Start - Saturday @ 18:33:15 |
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RALLY NEWS NO.1 Raheen Woods Hotel/Saturday evening
“We are not here to finish second, I want to win the rally, but of course I’m still thinking of the Championship” opined National Champion Patrick Elliott when he arrived into the Rally HQ, The Raheen Woods Hotel in Athenry. As Patrick signed for documentation under the watchful eye of the new super slim Gary Leonard, he continued, “We got a good recce done, but in truth if the weather, which was really good today, turned wet, they will be different stages. Whatever it does, I’ll try and keep my nose clean, and we’ll see how it pans out. The stages are a mixture with plenty of square corners, which doesn’t suit my ‘non-active’ car as well as the older active cars. But it is what it is!”
Last year here on this rally Niall Maguire gave Elliott a great race for it, but then Niall crashed out, and Patrick went on to win the rally and clinch the Dunlop National Championship. On paper Niall currently leads the Championship, but when dropped scores are taken into account, it’s Patrick Elliott who has the advantage. Running at 3 on the road is Kevin Barrett, and he has last year’s winning co-driver Damien Connolly in his Subaru this time. Kevin commented before the start, “I like these stages, although the weather will be a big factor, especially tyre choice, but we’ll give it a real go.”
Victor Farrell is again the Clerk of the Course, and he has picked stages broadly based on last year’s event, with a few variations to keep the driver’s on their toes. Victor has told us that the start and the first stage will run 30 minutes before the scheduled time as published and then the rally will go back to the original schedule. This means that Patrick Elliott’s Subaru will tackle the first stage, Kilbeg, outside Headford, at 09.45.
Garry Jennings starts at 4 in his Lancer behind the ‘big three’ Subaru’s competing for overall championship points. Garry’s mission is to try and win the Patterson RallyNews Group N Award in the championship and although drivers such as Thomas Fitzmaurice led the points earlier the GpN category is looking more and more like a two horse race between Garry and Kevin Kelleher. Garry won GpN on the last round, the Stonethrowers, and told us. “The car has had little more than a tidy up and should be alright. We’ll just keep the head down on the rally. The stages are very testing with a lot of jumps. I really need to win 2 rounds out of 3 and I’d like to do it here and in Donegal and not have to battle with Kevin Kelleher on his home patch in Skibbereen. If Kevin wins 2 out of next 3 he will take the title. Second in GpN here is not much good to me”. Ironically the only driver missing from the top 20 seeds would appear to be Eamonn Daly who was also in the hunt for GpN honours. Eamonn was to start at No.6 but has had the suspension revamped on his Lancer and hasn’t really had a chance to get the car set up to his liking. Mike Quinn is NO.8 and is the top seed of the Modified machines. Mike Bird is at 9 in his Impreza WRC and is very much on his home patch. Donegal man Trevor Bustard rounds off the top 10 in his Lancer. Trevor has several new tweaks to his Mitsubishi’s transmission and is hoping for a good run here. The above is just a taster of what is a packed entry on this Mor Oil backed Galway Summer Rally and of course there is a special innovation this year with 10 Mini Coopers having their own contest and also there is the Junior Rally starting at stage 5.
Looking outside this Galway Summer Rally, Magherafelt MC ran the Sunset Stages rally on Friday night, and perhaps a new rally star was born – 18 year old Matthew Cathcart, younger brother of Richard, won by 3 seconds from Jonny McKenna with Derek McGeehan 3rd in his Corolla WRC. Matthew was driving big brother Richard’s GpN Impreza and his co-driver Martin Brady, commented, “It was a brilliant run, and we had no intercom for the first stage. It also took him a while to get accustomed to the gears, he normally drives a Land Rover! There is more to come from him, this was Matthew’s first proper rally and first time on notes!”
More news after SS1: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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