BILLY COLEMAN AWARD WINNERS
Mini racer and EX-BTCC ace is going beyond the call of duty to help the coronavirus fight
2000: Rory Galligan Genuine superstar in his day. Peugeot and Mitsubishi Challenge regular and first Irish driver since Billy Coleman himself to drive a works car (Mitsubishi, BRC 2005). Sadly succumbed to motor neurone disease in 2012 2001: Stuart Darcy
Regular Irish National competitor to this day. Used funding for BRC season in 2002 in Puma S1600 that was dogged with issues
2002: Shaun Gallagher Drove a Peugeot 206 basically everywhere. After brief stint in an Evo, did 2007 and ’08 JWRC in Citroen C2 S1600. Hasn’t competed since 2009 2003: Dessie Keenan
Won his local event, the Monaghan Stages, back-toback in 2007 and ’08 in a hired Subaru Impreza WRC 2004: Eamon Mcelvaney
Made his name in a Peugeot 106. Progressed to a Subaru before drifting away from rallying in 2008. 2005: Gareth Machale Son of quadruple Tarmac champion Austin. 2005 Forestry champion in a Toyota Corolla WRC and 2010 Tarmac champion in a Ford Focus WRC. Did partial WRC programme in 2006 and ’07 2006: Owen Murphy
Driven vast majority of cars. A Fiesta Sport Trophy competitor in 2006 before stepping into a Mitsubishi. Nowadays drives historics in Ireland 2007: Keith Cronin
Four-time British Rally champion with four different manufacturers. The 2016 Tarmac champion. Driven in WRC support series and Intercontinental Rally Championship but never got big break
2008: Ross Forde
Began in Morris Mini before impressing in Honda Civic and the Peugeot 206 Cup. Entered historic rallies across Europe, Asia and America this decade as recently as last month. Drove Fiesta R5 on last year’s New England Rally in the USA
2009: Craig Breen WRC podium finisher who’s driven for Citroen and Hyundai. WRC Academy champion 2011 and SWRC champion 2012 as well as multiple European rally wins. ERC this year in Hyundai i20 R5 2010: Robert Barrable
Did British and Irish rounds in 2011 in Skoda Fabia S2000. Occasional WRC 2 competitor in 2013 and
’14 before doing the odd Tarmac round. Entered Galway in a Polo R5. Did a season of circuit racing in 2016 in British GT Championship
2011: Sam Moffett
Scored historic Tarmac, Forestry and National triple in 2017. Shot to fame in Mitsubishi Lancer E9 but synonymous with Ford Fiesta WRCS and R5s. Using Hyundai R5 in this year’s Tarmac series
2012: Daniel Mckenna
The 2014 British Rally champion in DS3 R3 after years of campaigning an Escort Mk2. Stepped up to some WRC in 2015 but hasn’t rallied since
2013: Stephen Wright
The 2019 Northern Ireland champion and Irish Tarmac regular who’s dabbled in Belgian rallying. Now drives Fiesta R5 that won three consecutive BRC titles with Cronin and Matt Edwards
2014: Dean Raftery
Fiesta Sport Trophy champion in 2014 after forging his reputation in Irish Forestry series. Sporadic outings since, including World and
Junior British appearances
2015: Rob Duggan The 2016 Junior British champion in works Vauxhall Adam R2. Made Junior WRC jump the following year but ran out of budget. Seen driving select events in a historic Escort, including Killarney win in 2018 2016: Josh Moffett Younger brother of Sam, winning Tarmac title the year after him in 2018. Like Sam, he made his name in a Mitsubishi before winning multiple rallies in a Fiesta and switching to a Hyundai for 2020 2017: Callum Devine
The 2017 Junior British champion. Headed to Junior World Rally Championship in 2018 before returning home in 2019 to take third in Irish Tarmac. European driver this year and took a podium in Hungary
2018: James Wilson
Irish Forestry championship leader in a Hyundai i20 R5. Had only ever driven front-wheel-drive Peugeots prior to Hyundai switch.
2019: Josh Mcerlean Reigning Junior British champion after winning half the rounds. Contesting BRC again this term but in an R5. Northern Ireland J1000 champion in 2016
When health secretary Matt Hancock in mid-march gave his ‘call to arms’ for manufacturers to help make ventilators for the coronavirus fight, I was immediately keen with my business ICD to do what I could. But after two weeks of trying I was getting nowhere with the official routes. So I started looking around at what else we could help with. There was the personal protective equipment, or PPE, shortage issue among health workers. Freddie Lee, who is an old family friend of my partner and fellow Mini racer Jo Polley, and also is involved in motorsport, he works for a company that had some reusable face masks with FFP3 filters. So we bought 3000 masks, for about
£70,000, and distributed them free to people who need them on the frontline. It was in effect a £70,000 donation. That’s our racing budget for the year donated in masks!
Our local hospital at Kettering couldn’t take them, because it was concerned about cross contamination as the masks were reusable. But then we distributed all of the 3000 masks direct to nurses, doctors, care homes, doctor surgeries, chemists, anybody in that environment who has got little or no filter protection. And very strangely Jo dropped the last delivery to Northampton General Hospital and its clinical leader said our masks are perfectly fine and fit for purpose!
Now we can access another 5000 masks to instantly distribute but I’m struggling to fund that by myself. If any fellow motorsport people or likeminded business person can help, I’ve set up a special email address: crisis@i-c-d.com. I’m not asking for £70,000, if you can donate a few hundred or a few thousand pounds it all helps buy as many masks as we can that we distribute direct to those who need them, rather than the money going into some black hole. We’re doing whatever we can, if the next thing’s goggles, aprons, gloves, we’re just trying to get them out there as quickly as possible.
Even now you see it on the news that a lot of the frontline people haven’t really got proper protection; at some point you’re going to end up with very few nurses and very few doctors to look after the ever-increasing numbers of ill people. At Northampton General, when we did our first drop, the nurse said the day before there were 115 nurses off confirmed with coronavirus; it was like ‘wow!’
We mainly distributed the masks locally in Wellingborough, Kettering and Northampton, but we’ve had contact from as far afield as the Shetland Isles. We want to help anybody that we can and we’re continuing to receive contact from people asking for masks. It’s clearly an ongoing problem.
It has, with official channels, been a frustrating process though. There’s been a lot of what seems red tape, misunderstanding, miscommunication and bureaucracy going on that just beggars belief. As mentioned, my initial attempt was to help with ventilator manufacture via my business ICD. We have got design, development and manufacturing capabilities for a wide range of things, and I have 25 people on production that I could move across. If somebody gave us the drawings we could either manufacture a ventilator’s components or we could use our existing supply chain partners to make things happen quickly.
But the official processes reminded me of the old dot-to-dot pictures, where people are drawing all these dots but there’s absolutely nobody who’s actually linking any of the dots up. I know of a number of manufacturing companies such as ourselves that have offered help but nobody’s put any of us in touch with each other, nobody’s come to us and said ‘here’s a drawing of a product, how many of them could you make and how much would they be?’ It’s also all way too slow and when I have spoken to someone I’ve been asked lots of vague questions. But it’s not just us experiencing this, as things are coming out in the news that we’ve been experiencing for weeks. I don’t necessarily think it’s the people running the country, I think it’s the civil service that has completely let everybody down on this one.
As for why we are doing this to help, it’s because it’s the right thing to do basically. Jo and I have been brought up in environments where you appreciate what you’ve got and never believe it’s something you’re always going to have. I’ll always try and help anybody. And certainly the NHS for me a couple of years ago when I had my British Touring Car Championship shunt at Croft, they were lifesavers. And generally I’ve still got a huge fear that in a very short period of time there won’t be enough nurses to look after the people who are ill.
“We can access another 5000 masks but I’m struggling to fund that by myself”