As St Patricks Weekend draws closer the Quality Hotels West Cork Rally is about to take place for the 31st time. There is a large variety of cars of various makes and models, as well a scattering of crews from all over the island as well as some from the UK. The event is fortunate to have to have full field of cars ready to take part in the event in these difficult economic times.
Paul Nagle, who co drove for Kris Meeke in their fantastic IRC win in the Curitiba Rally in Brazil over the past weekend, will back in the passenger seat alongside Donie O’Sullivan in their new Proton S2000. This crew, who won the event last year, will lead the 151 cars away on Saturday morning, will be hoping for a record equalling third win on the event. Only one other crew on the entry list has won West Cork before, Denis Cronin and Helen O’Sullivan who won in 2005. Drivers of the calibre of Liam McCarthy, Keith Cronin and Jim Harrison will be hoping to add their names to the winners list by next Sunday evening.
John Dalton, Phil Collins, Brian O’Mahony and James Stafford will be up against it if the weather is wet, but if it’s dry then anything could happen should the four wheel drive men hit trouble. Dalton and Collins will be favourites for class 14, but Adrien Heatherington, Kevin O’Donoghue, Manus Kelly or Ashley Field could spring a surprise here. Class 13 is also very tight with the likes of James Stafford, Ed O’Callaghan, Fintan Canty, Leonard Downey and Rodney White battling it out.
Class 11 is the mainly the domain of the Honda Cup runners with Damien McCarthy, David Guest, Jason Ryan and Thomas O’Rourke likely to be in the mix, with Jason McSweeney who is not registered for the series also likely to be on the pace. Brian O’Mahony will be fancied for class 6, but will face competition from the quick Citroen C2 R2s driven by the likes of Marty McCormack, Adrian McElhinney and Barry Evans. Daragh O’Riordan in his S1600 Renault Clio cannot be discounted for class honours either.
Another attraction over the weekend is the appearance of the Slowly Sideways Group B cars. There are ten of these cars representing some of the best rally cars of the 70’s and 80’s. They will be presented for scrutiny at 7pm on Friday evening before parading around the town of Clonakilty. They will then be parked at Emmet Square from 7.30pm to 8.30pm for display to the general public. The cars will run before the main field on stages 1, 2, 5 & 6 on Saturday, and stages 9, 10, 13 & 14 on Sunday.
Two time winner of the event Billy Coleman will drive Frank O’Mahonys Metro 6R4 as a 00 car. He will be co-driven by Adrian O’Sullivan from Bandon, the lucky winner of a draw to raise funds for Paul Gallagher who was seriously injured in the Galway International Rally in January.
Kevin O'Driscoll.
