This 2010 Safety Direct Galway International Rally marks the start of a fresh new decade at the top end of Irish Rallying. The fact that French car giant Citroen has stepped in to back the Tarmac Championship, of which this Galway round is the season opener, is significant in itself.
Even more so is the plethora of extremely talented young drivers – Keith Cronin, Alastair Fisher, Jonny Greer, Craig Breen, Richard Cathcart and a whole lot more, who will be snapping at the heels of the established crews in their World Rally Cars. It will be a major shock if there isn’t a WRC car first over the ramp on Sunday evening in Oranmore, but it will be no surprise either if at least one of the young drivers isn’t hot on the heels. Really it is hard to see past Gareth MacHale (Focus WRC), Tim McNulty (Impreza WRC), Aaron MacHale (Focus WRC) or Kevin Barrett, (Impreza WRC) being the men in the frame for victory, or Mike Bird in his Impreza WRC going for ‘Best Galway’ honours.
However there will be just as much interest in how the young, as well as the more experienced GpN drivers such as Garry Jennings, Alan Ring, Anthony O’Halloran and defending GpN Champion Jer O’Donovan get on. The GpN cars are allowed an increase in their turbo restrictor rings to 33mm this season, which should provide an increase in power, but they are still relatively standard cars. Craig Breen’s new Fiesta Super 2000 is on the other hand a custom built rally car from the ground up and it really is an unknown quantity as to what it’s performance will be here in Galway.
A big part of the rally will be the battles for the various classes and of course the race for Citroen Racing Trophy honours amongst the C2R2 Max contenders. There should be around 15 of the brilliant little C2R2’s fighting for the mammoth €20,000 prize fund on this rally. Amongst the contenders are UK Citroen C2R2 champion Marty McCormack and Irish Champion Adrian McElhinney. Drivers such as Andrew Bushe in his Citroen C2 and Daragh O’Riordan in his Renault Clio will be fighting for Super 1600 honours. Top of the modified section are Daniel McKenna and Barry Meade in their Escort Mk2’s, and there should be plenty of fireworks between these two and lots of other modifieds as well. One of them, Sean Boyle, who drives his venerable Mk1 Escort celebrates his 50th birthday this week and indeed has been competing on the rally for 25 years! Sean’s son Damien is co-driving for him. Ray Cunningham in his Mini Cooper S leads the Historic section from Martin Ward in his Manta. Sadly, Phillip Kerlin, who was a leading contender in the Historic section of the Tarmac series last year, died this week following an illness. The Historics join in after the first Saturday loop of stages. The Juniors join in on Sunday.
Latest news on the stages is that stage 2/5/8 has had to be shortened at the end by approximately 1Km because of flooding in the fields. Changes to the top end of the entry from the list in the programme are that Patrick Elliott (No5) and JJ Fleming (No11) are non-starting. As is now fairly well documented Barry McNulty is now co-driving for Keith Cronin, Eugene O’Donnell for Aaron MacHale and Rory Kennedy for Alastair Fisher. Aaron MacHale is sticking with his ‘05 Focus WRC and is running Pirelli Tyres.
More news in the morning: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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