Nagle and Meeke confident ahead of Rally Mexico

PAUL Nagle returns to the scene of his fourth world rally championship victory on this weekend’s Rally Mexico.

The Killarney man has won a total of five rounds of the world rally championship alongside his Citroen teammate Kris Meeke and the central American event presents their first real opportunity to take their first win of 2018.

Road positioning on the opening two rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship meant they spent more time clearing the road for the chasing back on the snow-covered roads of Monte Carlo and Sweden than they did challenging for victory. They will run seventh on the road in Mexico, an ideal starting place for a gravel rally.

Last year’s success on Rally Mexico came in dramatic circumstances, leading entering the final stage they put their C3 world rally car off the road within sight of the stage finish. The landed in a field and luckily found a way out, in what was one of the most viewed television moments of last season.

Meeke says the rally is similar to the opening day of Rally Catalonia, another rally they won last year and coupled with new suspension parts on the car, he is confident of a good result in the high-altitude stages of Mexico, getting their championship aspirations back on track.

He said: “Mexico is a bit like Catalonia, one of the gravel rallies where we were pretty competitive last year. Since then, we have made further improvements to the C3 WRC, so I have high hopes that we can get among the frontrunners. Of course, a lot of our rivals had reliability issues related to the altitude last year and are bound to be a lot better prepared this time around. It’s definitely an event that I like as the full power of the cars is not available, you have to be as clean as possible in your driving.

“I’m also pretty pleased with our recent tests. We seem to have made more progress, especially on the dampers in conjunction with Öhlins. In any case, I’m really looking forward to it. We need to make the most of running seventh on the road on day one – that will be key in getting a good result.” THE Triton Showers National Rally Championship gets underway on Sunday with the Mayo Motorsports Club Achill Rally. Local co-drivers, Brian Doherty, Keith McCarthy and Denny Greaney are in action in the west.

Round two of the national series the Circuit of Kerry, set for April 8, is already attracting a strong entry with more expected to commit after Sunday’s opener.

The Rose Hotel Tralee based event has always had strong support from UK visitors and this year is proving no different.

Welsh driver Tomas Davies has entered his BMW M3 in what will be his first attempt at the Rose Hotel Circuit of Kerry having contested the Cartell.ie Rally of the Lakes and Rentokil Initial Killarney Historic Rally in the past. He will be joined by Scottish native Lee Hasting who is making his first visit to Kerry in his Subaru Impreza.

Limerick driver Keith Lyons and his local co-driver Sean Hegarty are both contesting the Easter Stages in County Antrim the same weekend and face the long overnight haul from the north to contest Hegarty’s home rally on Sunday. The Kerry/Limerick duo will launch their 2018 campaign at a special event at Lyons of Limerick’s Ford dealership on Friday night.

Local crew Tom Relihan and Maurice McElligott were one of the first to commit in their Ford Escort MK1 and will be hoping to repeat their strong performance on last November’s Kerry Winter Rally where they were the top Kerry Motor Club crew.

Other local entries include Denis Hickey from Glenflesk, Eddie Kennelly from Lisselton and David Griffin from Keel.

KILLARNEY and District Motor Club presented Diarmuid Lynch (Glenflesk) with its Person of the year Award 2017 at the club’s recent AGM.

Lynch was honoured for his dedication and commitment to the club at every event it runs, and for his charity work last year after raising over €44,000 for the Kerry - Cork Health Link Cancer Bus through his rallying for the bus campaign.

MEANWHILE, the Limerick Forestry rally, due to run on Sunday last, was another sporting event that fell foul to the heavy snowfall and has been rescheduled for March 25.