Rallying to the cause
Continues to live his life in the fast lane
et on with it,’ he said. with work life can be who was an accountblin for a number of ployed by Keltech in tough balancing act. aken a proper holiday holiday I take is a rally S. stuff for instance is on Wednesday night, aight to the airport, fly sday, Friday, Saturday, unday, land at 5 a.m. straight back to work ar that he has a real ort, and despite the e of it, the thrills and ng back for more. t by trade so it’s a fair day job. It’s great to with what I’m doing stuff in Europe and way to get away and of the world that you up in remote parts of he Monte Carlo rally ench Alps, then you and you’re out in the o the U.S. and you’re and all these kind of vilisation almost. ound and see places ould never be otherimportant to prepare est possible manner e challenges that lie s it’s as much about the correct mindset hat you’re looking at yourself with the whole en you go over to the a town in the U.S. in ere probably never in re out all the different utes you’re going to ting your notes. work out the logistical t when you get there nto the car and take y where you’re going. ally about knowing as much as you possibly can the morning when you arrive, and that nothing is a surprise to you. In terms of anything else outside of that, we can’t really practise what we do.
‘You can do a small bit of testing with the rally cars but in terms of the actual competition side of things, it happens on the day really.
‘You try to make sure your mind is as clear as possible. The last thing you need when you’re under pressure in a car is to be thinking about something else.
‘Navigating is not exactly physically demanding but you have to keep your concentration levels up. Some of the days could be long enough, you could be 14 or 16 hours in and out of the car from start to finish, so to keep the concentration up you do have to have some level of fitness at least.
‘The other side of it as well, the drivers and owners are spending massive money on making sure they have the lightest weight car they can get. If you want to buy a lightweight seat that’s two kilos lighter than a normal seat, it’s costing €5,000, so if you decide to have a few extra pies and you’re five kilos overweight, it negates the whole thing.
‘A lot of these cars are ex-World Championship cars so the seats are all designed for lads who are about eleven stone weight, so you have trouble even fitting into the seat,’ he said.
Technological advances have seen rallying evolve greatly since Hayes took his first tentative steps into the sport, some for the good of the game and others to the detriment of it.
‘Things have moved on since I started in 2008. The first rally we did was in a little Peugeot 106, basically a road car with a roll cage in it, so for me it’s moved on massively in terms of what we’re competing in these days. We’re in ex-World Championship cars now.
‘The sport itself has changed massively because of the cost, unfortunately. Insurance issues have had a massive impact on Irish rallying in particular.
‘Back when I started there would have been a lot of Wexford amateur crews around. It was always an expensive sport, but it was a bit more manageable back then. These days the cost of the insurance and entry fees and everything else associated with it has gone so high that it has priced an awful lot of guys at the club man level out, which is disappointing.
‘If we look back to where we were in 2008, there’s no way we’d be able to start in the same way this year if we were starting from scratch. An entry fee today is roughly around twice what it was back in 2008. It makes it harder for people to get into it,’ he said.
Like all sports, action has been thin on the ground this year, with Hayes having competed in just one race in the National Rally Championship, with Josh Moffett, and one round in the U.S. Championship, with Ryan Booth, before the shutdown.
That could well be his lot until 2021 after Motorsport Ireland announced the cancellation of its competitions last week, while travel restrictions are likely to prevent him from competing in America until next year.