Kerry rally competitors go international this weekend
KERRY motorsport competitors will be an action in Italy and Belgium this weekend.
The World Rally Championship resumes on the island of Sardinia this weekend where Paul Nagle and Kris Meeke will be hoping to start the second half of the season by putting their recent run of bad luck behind them.
The Kerry / Tyrone pair are currently ninth in the World rankings and scored scored almost all of their tally when they won Rally Mexico.
In a season of highs and lows, the Citroën C3 WRC crew will be aiming for an error-free rally as they look to secure another positive result. They clearly have the speed, as witnessed in the many stage wins recorded in the last four rallies. They just have to convert their speed into results following accidents in the last two rounds.
Meeke said: “Obviously, we’ve had a couple of disappointing rounds in Argentina and Portugal. We are fully focused on getting back onto the positive trend that helped us to win in Mexico, and lead the Tour de Corse before having a technical problem. As we didn’t compete in Sardinia last year, we’re going to have to refamiliarise ourselves with the rally.
The stages are technically difficult and slippery, so your driving needs to be incredibly precise, especially when the road is narrow. From a pure racing point of view, it isn’t necessarily that enjoyable to drive on this type of surface, but we’ll try hard to have a solid race.”
They will be joined by current British Junior rally champion Rob Duggan on the Mediterranean island.
The Killarney driver is contesting this year’s Junior World Rally Championship and the Italian rally forms round two of the series.
Duggan will be without his trusted navigator Ger Conway for the first time, Conway is getting married this weekend so Duggan has enlisted British co-driver Tom Woodburn as a substitute.
Meanwhile in Belgium, Killarney and District Motor Club crew Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin are contesting the Wervik Rally in their M Sport Ford Fiesta R5. The crew is contesting this year’s British Rally Championship, the next round of the series is the famous Ypres Rally at the end of the month and they are using this weekend’s rally to familiarise themselves with the Belgian roads.
They were the top local finishers on Sunday’s Circuit of Munster where they finished fifth.
Other local results on the Rathkeale-based rally include Timmy Enright (Ford Escort) who finished second in his class.
Darren Young/Sean Walsh (Honda Civic) also took home the runner’s up award in their class while Eoin Duffin/Mike Cleary scored a long-overdue finish in their Escort. Sean Hegart navigating for Limerick’s Keith Lyons were third in class two,
Other finishers included Ger O’Brien/John Liston and Sean Enright/Conor Walsh in a brace of Escorts.
PJ O’Dowd/ John Young won the Historic section in their Talbot Sunbeam.