MOFFETT SET FOR ITRC TITLE DEFENCE
Josh Moffett will start the defence of his Irish Tarmac
Rally Championship crown on this weekend’s Galway International Rally and says that his elder brother Sam will be one of his toughest rivals.
Josh will bid for his third ITRC crown and has retained the same Hyundai i20 R5. He told MN: “We did a lot of thinking over the winter on whether to change or not. We know it works and if we went to a new car it would be quite a development phase trying to get set-up as well. Hopefully, what we have, we will make it work again this season.”
Moffett, 30, heads a typically strong ITRC field into the season opener, with a capacity 150-car field featuring 30 R5 and Rally2 cars. Welshman Meirion Evans, runner-up in the 2022 ITRC, starts at car two in his VW Polo R5 while Sam Moffett is at number four in another Hyundai i20 R5.
With his brother Sam returning to the top tier of Irish rallying in Galway, Josh is looking forward to the new season. “There’s great rivalry between everyone at the top end but I suppose it’s nice to race your brother and try and beat him, especially when he is your older brother. Everyone knows how fast Sam is on Tarmac, he will make it a tough bit of battling this year,” said Josh.
Although Josh hinted that he would like to rally abroad again sometime in the future, with Rally Finland a possibility, it’s not on his immediate horizon. “It’s not something I am too bothered about at the moment,” he said. “We have such good rallying here, both in stages and events. Here suits me well, it is at the weekend and doesn’t impact my work too much. Why would you ever go abroad?”