Owen Murphy and James O’ Brien won a thrilling Jim Walsh Cork Forest Rally last Saturday, writes Austin Shinnors, PRO Valvoline National Forest Championship.
Murphy and O'Brien are pictured above as they raced to victory in Cork. (Pic: Ger Leahy).
The Cork rally was round four of the 2012 Valvoline Forest Rally Championship and for the second rally in succession, the margins were minimal with Murphy winning by a mere 6.3 seconds ahead of Colin Britton. Pat O’Connell was third, just 0.9 seconds behind Britton. For Murphy, it was twenty one valuable championship points and also his first win on his local rally. Shane Mc Girr was best 2WD and Dean Raftery won the junior category.
The six stage rally was hosted by Cork Motor Club with its base in Mallow. A compact route included three stages (repeated) at Bweeng, Mount Hilary and Peter’s Hill.
For Murphy a win in Cork was essential. The Evo 9 driver is the reigning forest champion and he had little fortune in the opening two rounds of this year’s series. An ailing back prevented him competing on round one and in Carrick he retired with sheared wheel nuts on the last stage. He opened his account with victory in the Moonraker and set about chasing the championship leaders who were fast disappearing over the hill.
On Saturday’s event, the Corkman did an excellent time of the first stage (one third of a second off FTD), and he went into the lead with fastest on the second and third. On the second half of the rally he scored another FTD and a third and fourth fastest. Murphy is now up to seventh in the championship, and when a score is dropped he improves to fifth.
Colin Britton (Evo9) has been consistently on the podium this year. The Tyrone man started very well in Cork with fastest on stage one. For the remainder of the rally he was in a huge scrap with Pat O’ Connell (Evo9) for second spot, until he nosed ahead of the Cashel driver by 0.9 second at the finish. This result puts Britton leading the championship for the first time with a six point advantage.
Third overall was not the result that Pat O’Connell wanted, but last year's Cork forest rally winner and 2010 forest champion was once again very close to the top of the podium. In the Moonraker, O’Connell was fourth, a mere second from second position. With a retirement on rounds one and two, O’Connell has 37 points and is now eight overall but his fortunes will improve once the dropped score scenario is implemented.
Martin Cairns finished fourth with the power of his WRC helping him to a fastest time on stage four. Fifth was claimed by Enda McNulty in the Group A Impreza, and Vincent McAree was sixth. The Monaghan man had a bad start to the day as he stalled on stage one losing half a minute to Britton. However McAree recovered and was fastest on the final stage. He is now fourth in the championship and will climb higher when dropped scores are taken into account.
Due to a scrutiny issue Gary Jennings did not start the Cork Forest rally. The Fermanagh driver was leading the championship after three rounds, but Britton and Wright have overtaken Jennings albeit by a small margin.
Best 2WD was Shane McGirr in the powerful Starlet RWD and this result puts the Tyrone driver up to 5th in this class and third in class five. Junior driver Dean Raftery had an even better day-the Galway driver won a very close fight with his class nemesis Ian Downey by a slender 4.3 seconds. As a result, Raftery leads the junior class by two points and he is top of the 2WD class overall, a real achievement for a junior. Retirements included Sean Benskin, Kevin Barrett, Shay Power and Joe Shinnors Jnr.
CLASS WINNERS
Class 1 Emmet Cronin (Escort MK2)
Class2 Johnny Kenneally (Escort MK2)
Class 3 Paul Fitzgerald (Escort MK2)
Class 4Alan Commins (Escort MK2)
Class 5 Shane Mc Girr (Starlet RWD)
Class 6 Enda Mc Nulty (Impreza)
Class 7 Martin Cairns (Impreza S11
Class 8 Owen Murphy (Evo 9)
Class9 Dean Raftery (Honda Civic)
