O'Riordan takes second Killarney win

Darragh O'Riordan took a dominating win in Kerry last weekend at the Killarney Rally of the Lakes.

Following up his breakthrough win last year in The Kingdom, O'Riordan and co-driver Tony McDaid guided their Subaru Impreza S12B faultlessly over the legendary Killarney stages to take a commanding win of over 2 mins, ahead of Championship leader Darren Gass.

It wasn't all plain sailing for O'Riordan, and stiff competition came in the form of reigning Tarmac Champion Tim McNulty. Making his second appearance of 2012 after missing the Circuit of Ireland, McNulty flew into an early lead ahead of O'Riordan. It all fell apart for 'Big Tim', when his Subaru vanished off the road backwards whilst negotiating the famous Molls Gap stage, SS4.

McNulty's adventure let Eugene Donnelly up into second overall, but by now O'Riordan was driving away from the opposition. Donnelly, piloting his Toyota Corolla WRC, was keeping Darren Gass at bay, Gass marking only his second trip to Killarney.

Gass took advantage of an intercom problem for Donnelly on SS10, the Tim Healy Pass, and cut the deficit down to 1 sec before moving into a 3 secs lead. Disaster struck for the 7-times Tarmac Champion, as a piston failure put him out of the rally. This looks to be the end of the road for Donnelly's Championship aspirations.

This put everyone behind up a place, including moving Group N leader Garry Jennings into 3^rd overall. Gass maintained second but there was nothing he could do about the leading S12B of O'Riordan.

The order remained the same as Darragh O'Riordan blew the opposition into the weeds with a spectacular second consecutive win in Killarney. Gass took second, maintaining his Championship lead over Garry Jennings, who took third overall and Group N win. Indeed, such was Jennings winning margin in the showroom class that he had his service engineer Colm Grant knock back the power in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo so he could cruise to the finish. Jenning's nearest rival, Sam Moffett, went out from fourth overall with the timing went funny in his similar Evo.

JJ Fleming struggled to get used to his ex-Mikko Hirvonen Ford Focus WRC, but still took fourth, albeit over 13 mins off the lead. Vincent O'Shea took fifth overall and second in Group N to the rapid Garry Jennings. Sixth went to the Citroen Racing Trophy winning Citroen C2 of David Carney and Ray Fitzpatrick.

Aaron McHale made his return to rallying in his usual Ford Focus WRC. The car had been out of action for a few years and a list of problems plagued the car, including clutch, battery and alternator problems. Eoin Doyle had a strong run in his also newly acquired Ford Focus WRC, but went out on the Ballaghbeama stage.

In stark contrast to the International field, there was a massive fight for the win in the National section. Roy White (MG ZR S2000) and Barry Meade (Ford Escort MK2) swapped times throughout the rally, but an electrical problem caused White's MG to stall twice in one stage, and even thought he threw caution to the wind to catch back up, but Meade held on to win by 10 secs. Fergus O'Mara was third, but nearly 3 mins off the leading pair.