McNulty lands Spring Rally laurels

Rallying is all about finishing, as Enda McNulty can now testify after winning the Omagh Spring Rally in his Subaru Impreza, watching as others fell by the wayside.

Enda McNulty
1st Overall

Martin Cairns lead the rally after SS1 in his Subaru Impreza S12, but he made an unexpected trip into the County Tyrone trees and straight out of the rally. Surely favourite to win the rally, owing to massive forest experience and a far superior car, it was a shame to see Cairns go out so early.

Gareth Sayers
2nd Overall

More known for his sideways and spectacular exploits in 'Baby Blue', his Ford Escort Mk2, Frank Kelly was stuck without an engine before the rally. Quite unexpectedly, Conor KcKenna stood up and offered his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo to Frank for the rally, marking Frank's return to 4WD for a good few years. It began well, and with only a brief test before the event, Frank was on or near the pace from the start. A puncture on SS2 cost him loads of time, but three straight fastest times brought him back up to third place. Closing on second place, Frank outbraked himself and the Evo found itself heading into a bog upside down. Little damage was done, but no spectators were about so it was game over for Frank and co-driver Sean Ferris.

Shane McGirr
3rd Overall

Gareth Sayers drove a superb rally to take second place, with the win only 7 secs up the road. Shane McGirr, in the sideways Starlet, took third, less than half a minute behind winner McNulty. Marty McCormack was back in the Historic-spec Escort Mk2, and took fourth. Amazingly, co-driver Liam Moynihan guided Marty to the Historic class win in Omagh, and then drove straight to Birr to win 2WD with Tommy Doyle in his new Clio R3!

Marty McCormack
4th Overall
Historic Winner

Desi Henry took his Citroen DS3 R3 into the forests for the first time this year, only 4 secs ahead of the flying Fiesta R2 of Jon Armstrong, who was amazing the spectators with his pace throughout the day. Desi and Jon took fifth and sixth overall.

Jon Armstrong
6th Overall

Adrian Heatherington took seventh overall, surviving a big moment with a ditch to bring his 'gravel' Mk2 home safe and sound. Oran Donnelly took eighth and dominated Class 6, for 2 Litre 8 Valve cars. Anthony Cairns and Joseph McGonagle took ninth and tenth, with Joseph taking the brilliant little Clio R3 into the forests.

Father and son team Robert and Darren McKelvey were out in force, with Robert back in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 and Darren in the other Mitsubishi, this time an Evo 6. Robert and co-driver Aaron Johnston took 19^th place overall, and third in Group N. Darren and Denver Rafferty fared a little worse, within seconds of father Robert all day but they bogged the Evo 6 on a particularly cut-up hairpin. Both crews running GRN stickers as well!

Malachy Loughran
25th Overall
4th Class 6

GRN's Jordan Murphy made his début on the stages on the Omagh Spring Rally, as co-driver to Malachy Loughran. The pair got off to a shaky start, but steadily climbed the leaderboard as the rally went on, ending the tough event only 7 secs behind third in Class 6, Declan Campbell. It was a baptism of fire for the young navi from Co. Donegal, who “took an awful battering” over the rough gravel stages!

Photos copyright to Adrian Begley, no unauthorised use without express prior consent.

Rally Italia Sardegna gets 2 day format

This year's running of the Rally Italia Sardegna will feature a new, more compact two day layout for the seventh round of the World Rally Championship.

Last year featured a four day long rally, with the bulk of the stages running on Friday and Saturday. Thursday featured two runs over the 28km Terranova stage, with Sunday playing host to the Gallura stage, the 8km stage that doubled up as the event-closing Power Stage.

This year however, Thursday will see the Qualifying Stage and the Ceremonial Start in the evening time. Eight stages will take place on Friday, the final one being under the cover the darkness. A Remote Service Zone will take place in Sassari.

Saturday sees another eight stages, the 19km Monte Olia stage being the Power Stage. This will be the second and final day of the rally, taking a lead from the Rally Finland, who have run a hugely successful two day format for a number of years now.

The Rally Italia Sardegna will move back to it's traditional summer spot, moving back from an October slot to June.

Cronin masters Galway!

Keith Cronin came back to Ireland with a bang, showing his level of talent by rocketing past the opposition in his Subaru Impreza S11.

Wet lanes coated with mud greeted the crews on Sunday morning and the Galway Rally got underway. Fastest out of the blocks was returning Tarmac Champion Eugene Donnelly, who was back driving the Colm Quinn-sponsored MINI John Cooper Works WRC. However this time it was in right hand drive form, with some subtle upgrades over last year's version. He was 12 secs faster than anyone else over SS1.

Other drivers weren't so fortunate, with Derek McGarrity bringing his Subaru Impreza S14 back only to suffer from intercom problems and Garry Jennings was suffering from gearbox problems. However Darren Gass came off the worst, the reigning Champion sliding off into a ditch and retiring on the very first stage.

Heading into the first service of the rally, Donnelly still lead but with a reduced lead after Derek McGarrity cut the gap to under 11 secs. Keith Cronin continued to get used to his car, holding onto third place.

At the end of the second loop, Donnelly continued to lead but by a minute 0.1 secs over an on form Cronin, who had begun to up the pace in his ex-Thomas Fitzmaurice S11. He won SS5 by 12 secs. Declan Boyle was getting a feel for ITRC pace, beginning to close on McGarrity for third place.

The beginning of the final loop was swept by drizzle and light rain, but it didn't faze triple British Champion Cronin. He laid waste to all around him, despite being on a set of old Pirelli's he went into a 12.5 sec lead overall. Donnelly maintained second place, with the conditions deteriorating he couldn't afford a mistake with McGarrity and Boyle waiting for one of the Top 2 to slip up.

The final stage saw Cronin extend his lead up to 13.8 secs over Donnelly, who joked he might buy a dress soon as he always appears to be the bridesmaid in Galway. It was a sterling drive for the young man who was only adapting to the car throughout the whole rally. Declan Boyle finally overhauled Derek McGarrity with a big push through the final stage for third place.

McGarrity took fourth place in the Kerrs Tyres-sponsored car, with Donegal man Donagh Kelly in fifth place. Garry Jennings took sixth place, curing his gearbox problems only to suffer from handling problems in his new Impreza S12, the car getting all out of shape coming into junctions and tight corners.

Highest Galway crew were John Joe Fleming and Robbie Ward in their striking Ford Focus WRC. They took a solid seventh place amidst the horrible conditions, with John Joe saying it's the nicest car he's ever driven, but is struggling to get used to left hand drive. He was promoted one place after Thomas Fitzmaurice retired his Subaru Impreza S12C with reported gearbox problems.

Alan Ring won the Group N award in his regular Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9, finishing ahead of the Moffett brother's Josh and Sam in similar cars. Ring winning by 21 secs over Josh, with Sam finishing 7 tenths behind his brother in third place. Sam Moffett was putting Ring under pressure going into the final test but his Evo started to misfire and that was the end of his challenge.

Paddy Kiernan and James McCarville took a last gasp National Rally win in their beautiful Ford Escort Mk2. Leaving the final service the pair trailed then National leader Tom Flaherty by 3 secs, but put in a solid drive to take the lead by 9.2 secs after SS6, only for Flaherty to fight back and cut the deficit to 2.9 secs going into the final stage.

The final stage was Kiernan's finest performance of the rally, he and co-driver McCarville finishing the stage in the hope they had done enough, McCarville even saying “Young Kiernan I hope we done it boy!”. They had in fact done it, and the National crown was theirs. Fergus O'Mara rose to second place, demoting Flaherty to third place at the end of the final, treacherous, test.

Wesley Patterson lead the Historic section in his immaculately prepared Ford Escort Mk2 (built to FIA Historic specification), until his engine failed close to the end. This let James O'Mahony into the lead and he held it to the end, leading home Ray Cunningham in one of his famous Mini Cooper's. John Spiers took third in his Porsche 911.

Richard Moore took a dominating victory in the Junior class in his Honda Civic, finishing over 3 mins ahead of second placed Kenneth Quirke. Justin Ryan took third place as the final finisher on what proved to be a rally of attrition for the entire field.

Daniel McKenna to contest BRC

Daniel McKenna will swap his Class 14 Ford Escort MK2 for a Ford Fiesta R2 when he contests the British Rally Championship and fights for the Pirelli Star Driver Award this year.

McKenna, the Billy Coleman Award winner last year, announced recently that he will contest the BRC thanks to the €50,000 he netted by winning the Billy Coleman Award. He has already undertaken testing in his Fiesta R2, and reportedly took to the new car very quickly. The Monaghan driver plans to contest a round of the Irish Forestry Championship to gain competitive experience of the car, and will also complete a day of testing prior to the Rally North Wales, the opening round of the BRC.

With the Pirelli Star Driver Award running once again alongside the BRC this year, and once McKenna secures a nomination for the season-ending shoot-out (the prize being a fully funded drive in the 2014 BRC), he will upgrade to an R3 specification and go for the overall Championship.

Arthur Kierans will co-drive for McKenna this season as his regular co-driver Andrew Greenan has since emigrated to Australia.

Gronholm to test MINI WRC car

Marcus Gronholm will mark his return to a WRC car next week with a test in a MINI John Cooper Works WRC, six months after suffering injuries owing a horrific crash at the X Games which put him out of competition.

The big Finn will test for the Motorsport Italia team in Sweden with their regular driver Michal Kosciuszko ahead of the Kosciuszko's Rally Sweden next weekend. Gronholm is a five times winner of Rally Sweden, for both Peugeot (with whom Sweden 2000 was his first win) and Ford.

Bruno di Pianto, Motorsport Italia boss, praised Gronholm as a legend and was sure Kosciuszko would learn from the double World Champion's experience and skill.

He said: “He'll also take our Mini John Cooper Works WRC out for a spin and test her limits, which'll allow us to compare his and Michal's data on the 6km test stage, then work on speed-saving details like technical corner entry, mid-corner speed and corner exit.

"We'll run for about 100km and Marcus will help Michal with the particular style of driving needed for Sweden based on how much a driver can use or lean on the snow banks.”

Gronholm last competed in a WRC car on the Rally Sweden 2010 in a Ford Focus WRC for the Stobart VK M-Sport team. He retired from full time competition in 2007, narrowly missing out on the World Driver's Championship to Sebastian Loeb.

Atko gets Mexico drive

Chris Atkinson is set to make a return to the WRC when the series goes to Mexico, Round 3 of the 2013 WRC.

Atkinson, the reigning Asia-Pacific Rally Champion, piloted a Ford Fiesta RS WRC, Citroen DS3 WRC and MINI John Cooper Works WRC at various points in the year. He finished in the points on four occasions, his best being a fifth place in Germany on his début in the MINI.

However this time he will be back in the Citroen, driving Khalid Al-Qassimi's car, under the Abu Dhabi Racing team banner. Al-Qassimi has other commitments and personally requested 'Atko' take over his car.

"As Khalid is unable to take part in Rally Mexico, he wanted us to entrust the DS3 WRC of the Abu Dhabi Citroen Total WRT to Chris Atkinson and [co-driver] Stephane Prevot for this rally. Chris competed in the 2012 edition and we know he has the potential to do Abu Dhabi Racing proud." said Yves Matton, Citroen Racing boss.

Stephane Prevot will once again co-drive for Atkinson, having done so since 2007 in both the WRC and APRC.

Rally Mexico takes place from the 7^th-10^th March, and is a counting round for both the WRC 2 and WRC 3 classes.