The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Duggan and Conway secure WRC drive after winning British title
ROB Duggan and Ger Conway will be the latest Kerry rally crew to contest the World Rally Championship thanks to their win on the British Junior Rally Championship.
The Killarney paid dominated the junior class on last weekend’s Ulster Rally to seal the British Junior title with one round to go.
Their prize is a subsidised drive in the 2017 Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy on five WRC rounds where they will be joining fellow Killarney man Noel O’Sullivan.
Duggan said: “We are delighted to have won the rally. Our mind-set coming into this event was to try our very best and try and wrapup the title, but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. The other boys were very quick so we also had to push hard from the word go and we pushed it all the way to the end. It was a very tough event and most certainly the toughest event I have done. Words cannot describe the feeling, it just hasn’t sunk in yet, it is amazing. It is a huge team effort from family, friends, the Vauxhall team – everything just clicked and it has been a very good year. We couldn’t have asked for much more.”
Co-driver Mikey Galvin had a mixed Ulster Rally. He and his driver Keith Cronin were running as high as second place for much of the rally. However, their Citroen DS3 developed a gearbox problem late on and they incurred road penalties when their team ran out of time replacing it. They went on to finish fifth and have a set up a winner takes all title showdown on the Cork “20” in October. The Kerry/Cork pair trail Irish Tarmac Championship leaders Alistair Fisher and Gordon Noble by just two points.
O’Sullivan was in Germany over the weekend tackling the latest round of the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy alongside Northern Ireland’s Jon Armstrong.
They won five stages as they took the final podium place after a mixed weekend. The Kerry/Fermanagh team, the overall winner at PZM Rally Poland last month, had a heavy shunt during stage two on Friday. They then lost more than three minutes following a puncture on Saturday. Armstrong and O’Sullivan are now third in the latest Trophy table.
On the home-front, The Galway Summer Rally takes place this weekend with co-driver Shane Buckley (alongside West Cork’s Daniel Cronin) and driver Vincent O’Shea (Kenmare) among the Kerry competitors in the latest round of the Top Part West Coast Rally Championship.