Puncture leaves Cronin and Galvin deflated on latest round of British Rally Championship on Welsh gravel

KEITH Cronin and Mikie Galvin may be the men of the moment in the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship but their British Rally Championship is not going as well.

The Killarney and District Motor Club are mounting a dual campaign on either side of the Irish Sea, and so far this year they have won two of the first three domestic events and finished second in the third.

The British Rally Championship moved to gravel for the first time this year at the weekend with the Severn Valley Rally, and for Cork man Cronin and Galvin, from Killarney, it was their first event on the loose in over 12 months. Before the start of the rally, Cronin expressed the hope of scoring a podium finish but was mindful of the difficulty his lack of gravel running would present.

Chris Ingram and Alex Kihurani, winners of the opening BRC round in Lancashire last month, were fastest on the opening stage in their Volkswagen Polo GTi R5. Pryce and Evans then went quickest in their Ford Fiesta Rally 2 on the second and third tests, moving into the lead.

Cronin and Galvin held third after stage two in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 but from there on things began to unravel for the Cork and Kerry crew. They lost third to William Creighton and Liam Regan on stage three, and then had a troubled fourth stage, suffering a spin and impacting with a log pulled out on the road by some of the earlier cars.

Following the service in Builth Wells, the crews tackled three further stages in the afternoon. The first of these, the short six-kilometre Sarnau test, saw Cronin and Galvin take second fastest time, 1.6 seconds off Creighton and Regan who were quickest.

On stage six, Myherin Main, Cronin and Galvin picked up a puncture and lost seven minutes having to change the wheel. This put paid to any prospect of a good result, and they finished the rally outside of the top ten in the overall results. Coupled with a troubled seventh-place finish on the North West Stages Rally last month, it has not been the best of starts to their British Championship season, and they now have it all to do if they are to be in the final shake-up for the 2024 title.

“It’s been a long time since I had a good run on any rally in Wales, and this one has been no different,” said Cronin at the finish of the Severn Valley.

“We got a puncture, I don’t know where we picked it up. There were some big rocks in the stage, there were like four-inch stones, and you had to drive over it, so I’m only assuming that is where we got it. We didn’t touch anything. It was the back right, there was a fast left-hander, and the car just moved, we took another one and it moved more. We had a sort of slow puncture, I don’t know where it started. We had to stop and change it.

“Everything was going wrong, the car fell off the jack, it has not been a good start to the BRC for us, although the last time we won the championship we had a similar start to the season,” he added.

“I think we need to work on the gravel. We were getting back into it, but I can hit the ground running faster on tarmac because I’ve just done more of it, whereas with gravel I’ve done so little of it over the last few years. We might have to do some other rallies on gravel if we want to be competing in it.”

The attention of Cronin and Galvin will revert to the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship and the Killarney International Rally of the Lakes on May 4 and 5. They currently lead that series having taken two wins and a second place from the first three rounds.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Kris Meeke and Killarney co-driver Noel O’Sullivan won the Otago Rally in a Ford Escort Mk2.