The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Killarney Historic Stages Rally launch
THE Rentokil-Initial Killarney Historic Rally was officially launched last Sunday at Scott’s Hotel, Killarney where Killarney and District Motor Club announced details of this year’s event. Ireland’s only event to cater solely for historic rally cars and night stage rallying is set to run on Saturday, December3.
The rally will count as the first round of the 2017 Clonakilty Black Pudding Irish Tarmac Historic Rally Championship; the final round of the 2016 Plasticbags.ie Southern Four Rally Championship; and the final round of The 2016 HRCR West Wales Rally Spares - Stage Masters Challenge.
Event clerk of the course Kevin Flannery and his crew have built this year’s rally around the competitor and in doing so has selected a route of classic stages based around Killarney town, offering the competitor 110km of competitive stages, followed by short road kilometres allowing for an easy recce, Centralised service area at the event HQ and the popular feature of the final stage to be run in the darkness.
Event COC Kevin said: “With the unfortunate cancellation of last year’s event, we decided to run this year as a exact replica. This makes both a labour and fi- nancial sense for us the organisers and should make it all the more attractive to our loyal competitors”.
The rally will be backed by Rentokil Initial Ireland as main title sponsor for the fourth consecutive year. Rentokil Initial managing director Michael O’Mahoney said: “On behalf of Rentokil Initial I am delighted to be associated with this year’s Killarney Historic Rally. The event has grown from strength to strength and is a phenomenal success. Our desire to support the local community and businesses that have supported Rentokil Initial, so loyally over the many years is the reason why we are again involved with Ireland’s most prestigious rally”.
The event, which provides a welcome end of season boost to Ireland’s tourism capital and is worth millions to the local economy, will again be hosted at the Gleneagle Hotel as Rally Headquarters, along with supplying some great rally accommodation packages throughout the weekend.
There will be extensive TV coverage of this year’s event by Mick Bracken of On The Limit sports, on TG4, Setanta Sports, Motors TV and Sky Sports over the Christmas period.
The rally starts on Friday evening with a ceremonial start in Main Street, Killarney at 7pm. The real action gets underway on Saturday morning with the iconic ‘Moll’s Gap’ often rated by rally drivers as being the best and one of the most-challenging stages in the world. ‘Coolick’, the Kilcummin village stage is always a favourite, just north of Killarney town, the stage runs straight through the village offering a great spectacle for the many fans to view. ‘Anablatha’ is a newly designed stage in the Gneeveguilla area, sections of which have been used in the past by the Rally of the Lakes, it’s a fast flowing stage with great surface and many junctions. ‘Gortnagane’ which runs parallel to the main Rathmore/Killarney road, is highly regarded as one of the most technical, narrow, and demanding stages of Killarney rallying. The second run over Gortnagane, will be run under the cover of darkness.
Over 100 crews have already entered and among the leading entries in the Historic section is Steve Perez, British Rally Champion 2010 and also British Historic Rally Champion 2014, who will be driving his extremely popular Lancia Stratos rally car. Rally Legend Jimmy McRae returns to Killarney, the five-time British Rally Champion and seven-time winner of The Circuit of Ireland is fresh from a run in Wales Rally GB and looking forward to the event driving his Vauxhall Firenza Can-Am. Irish Historic Rally champions of 2014 and 2015 James O’Mahoney and Ernie Graham have both entered in their Ford Escort RS1800.
Both Irish Tarmac Rally champion Donagh Kelly and British Junior Rally champion Robert Duggan are entered in the Modified section and should be a major attraction to the event. Some other top names of British Historic rallying include Ryan Barrett, Andy Johnston, Stanley Orr, Melvyn Evans, Gareth Lioyd and Owen Murphy. Top Modified entries include Chris Armstrong, Gary Kiernan, Johnaton Pringle, Phil Collins, Jack Newman, Enda O’Brien.
Top local Historic competitors include the experienced Pat Looney from Kilcummin in his Ford Escort Mk1 who is fresh from a class win in the Galway summer rally. Irish National Historic Rally champion PJ Dowd from Tralee in his Talbot Sunbeam and along with Southern 4 Championship winner Donal O’Connor, from Rathmore, will all be pushing hard for top local honour. Killarney’s Aidan Kennedy and Glenbeigh’s Jack O’Shea also head the Mini cooper line up.
Leading local crews in the Modified category include Kevin O’Donoghue, Tommy Mason, Aidan Buckley, Tadhg O’Sullivan, Denis Hickey, Noel O’Sullivan, Vincent O’Shea and the Hickey brothers of Charlie and John Hickey who will all drive Ford Escorts.
Entries remain open at www. shannonsportsit.ie/evo/Login