The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Preparations for Killarney Historic Rally underway
KILLARNEY and District Motor Club is hopeful its Rentokil Initial Historic Rally can go ahead later this year. The club has begun initial preparations for the event but all future decisions will depend on the government lifting further restrictions and other virus-related guidelines.
An event the size and stature of the Killarney Historic Rally takes months of planning and rather than be faced with a massive workload at short notice, the club has taken the decision to start the pre-event planning at this time with the option that the event can be pulled at a later date if the virus is not sufficiently suppressed.
With this in mind, the organising team has secured a new date for the rally and has confirmed that the Gleneagle Hotel will, once again, act as event headquarters.
The rally, originally fixed for Saturday, December 5, has been brought forward one week to November 28, mainly due to several other rescheduled events taking place at the Gleneagle Hotel on the original date and to take advantage of slightly longer daylight hours in late November.
No decision has been taken on a potential route but it is understood that KDMC is considering using remote roads with little or no residents.
Side events like the town centre ceremonial start and a prizegiving ceremony could be removed from the event’s schedule to comply with crowd-gathering rules that may be in place at the time of the event.
Like all events, in the early planning stages, decisions remain fluid and the club is ready to act either way depending on further restrictions or the future easing of large event and crowd gathering rules.
EUROPEAN RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
ELSEWHERE, the FIA, the sport’s world governing body, has confirmed a revised European Rally
Championship calendar which will give Paul Nagle some idea on how to plan for the remaining six months of his 2020 season.
The Killarney man and his driver Craig Breen were always in line to contest the ERC on board an MRF Tyres supported Hyundai i30 R5 but their season never got off the ground as Coronavirus restrictions shut the sport down across Europe.
In the 18 weeks between their opening rally in July and their final event of the year in the Canary Islands they will contest nine different events in eight countries. This hectic schedule does not include potential World Championship outings. The WRC is due to issue a new calendar of events later this week.
Their first ERC outing is the Rally di Roma Capitale on the weekend of July 24-26. They will return to Italy for the following weekend’s Alba Rally, an Italian event that the Hyundai Motorsport team is contesting in force and will drive a factory-supported i30 R5 car in this rally. Rally Latvia is set for August 14-16 and this is followed by the Czech Republic’s Barum Rally Zlin from August 28-30.
Originally scheduled for late March as the opening round of the 2020 ERC, the Azores Rally will now take place from September 17-18 as round four of the revised season.
Before Breen and Nagle tackle the fifth round, the Cyprus Rally on October 16-18, they will defend their (non-championship) Ypres Rally title in Belgium on the first weekend of October.
Rally Hungary, on November 7 and 8, will mark the penultimate round of the restructured championship which will conclude with May’s rescheduled Rally Islas Canarias on the same weekend as the Killarney Historic Rally.
“We have a full schedule and all we can do now is prepare as if that is what is happening,” Nagle said. “But all this can change in a minute. I don’t even have my flights booked for Italy yet and I am not panicking about it.”