Cronin and Galvin enjoy start to finish win at Circuit of Munster

KILLARNEY and District Motor Club crew Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin took a start to finish victory on Sunday’s Circuit of Munster in the Rathkeale and Newcastlewest area.

Driving their new Hyundai i20 R5 for the first time, the result sets them up nicely for the famous Ypres Rally in Belgium in a few weeks.

The pair is contesting this year’s British Rally Championship and the Belgian event is round two of the series, on the previous round in Carlisle they used teammate Eugene Donnelly’s car.

The current British champions will now participate in this weekend’s Rally Wervik, a club rally less than 20kms from Ypres as another test session where they are the number one seeds.

Cronin’s brother Daniel, a former Kerry Winter Rally winner was second in a Ford Fiesta R5.

Mike Quinn and Tony Healy were sixth overall and second in class 14 with fellow Escort crews Tim Enright and Stephen Buckley third in that class and Vincent O’Shea and Sean Brunton fourth.

They were separated by Glenflesk co-driver Brian Doherty who guided local driver Eamon Daly to seventh place.in another Lancer

Ger O’Brien and John Liston were 19th to put their non-finish on the Circuit of Kerry behind them.

Sean Enright and Kevin Doherty were second in class 12 and Eddie Kennelly and Timmy Murphy fifth in class 11R.

Paudie Casey/ Gene Stack (Corolla) and James and Tim Kissane and Maurice and James Browne (both in Escorts) were also among the Kerry finishers. Co-driver Keith McCarthy guided Hazel Callaghan to the ladies’ driver award in another Escort.

Todd Falvey won the historic section in his Ford Escort while Kerry Motor Club stalwarts David Griffin and PJ O’Dowd were third in this category in their Corolla.

Conor Murphy, Kieran Reen and Jason Farrell ensured that Kerry drivers locked-out the podium in the junior element of the rally, all three were driving Honda Civics, Reen was just nine seconds behind Murphy for the win.

Dublin based Currow co-driver John McCarthy is the only Kerry competitor on the entry list for Saturday’s Mourne Rally in County Down. He is alongside local driver John Devlin in an Escort.