MAURICE MALONE

“Emerald Isle has great gravel roads too!”

We’re lucky to be blessed with some incredible stretches of Tarmac on this small island, around which some wonderful events have been created.

The Irish Tarmac Championship boasts jewels like West Cork, Killarney and Donegal, events with fearsome and spectacular stages that every competitor aspires to tackle at least once. Smaller-scale events feature some majestic roads, too, the Circuit of Kerry and the Achill Island-based Mayo Stages being just two such examples.

It’s sealed-surface rallying that Ireland is known for, and indeed the World and Intercontinental Rally Championship rounds hosted here over the last few years have exclusively utilised the black stuff. Professional drivers have testified to the challenges posed by Irish Tarmac tests, and the car set-up required is totally different than that needed for European roads.

You could therefore be forgiven for reckoning on that’s our lot, but the reality is somewhat different. To trot out a totally overused phrase, if you go down in the woods today… look, you know the rest.

Truth is, there are gravel stages within our forests that are every bit as challenging and exciting as any Tarmac road you can mention. They might not have the same reputation as those across the water in Killer Kielder, nor the sheer brain-out lunacy of Finland’s classics, but don’t let that put you off.

The healthy and growing Forestry championship appears to be going from strength to strength with entries abundant in quantity and quality. Motor clubs are eager to please competitors, with Carrickon-suir’s night stages and the switch of the Cork Forestry event to a two-day rally being met with praise from all quarters.

Then there’s the basic appeal of loose-surface rallying: fun. No matter what car you’re in, toying with the limits of grip and feeling the car move around beneath you is one of the reasons competitors compete. We’ve all been raised on a diet of our WRC heroes doing unfathomable things on surfaces that are barely fit to be stood on, and sending a rooster tail of dust and rocks flying in your wake as you get that Scandinavian flick just right and jump back on the power, you can convince yourself that you’re a rallying god even at relatively low speeds. It’s a brilliant arena in which to learn car control.

With many events featuring stages that are beautifully smooth, flowing and at the same time easy on cars, the appeal is clear to see. At world level, the days of a driver being a specialist on a particular surface are long gone, and therefore there’s the pressing need for our young talent to be equally at home on tar and gravel if they want to progress up the ranks. With plenty forest events spread around the country, there’s no reason not to jack up that Tarmac car, fit some knobbly tyres and give it a crack.