Rally season gets under way
Tuesday March 09 2010
A NEW season of the Dunlop National Rally Championship got underway with the Abbey Court Hotel Nenagh Rally.
Welsh man, Mel Evans and his codriver Patrick Walsh secured the overall win in their Subaru WRC some 22 seconds ahead of Derek McGarrity/James McKee with Kevin Kelleher/Adrian Deasy in third.
A total of 5 Carlow Car Club crews competed in the event the first of these being the Condell brothers David and George in their well maintained MkII Escort, with plenty of power at their disposal the lads used it to the best of their ability on the fast open stages finishing 13th overall and 4th in the highly competitive class 14.
The lads suffered a broken manifold coming off stage 4 but managed to have it repaired by fellow club member Andrew Mc Cabe in the final service, despite this the pair were really happy with the overall performance of the car and are looking forward to the Carlow Stages Rally and MkII challenge. Joe and John Connolly also took to the stages in their impeccable MkII the pair had a good run with plenty of sideways action, finishing 19th overall and 5th in class 14.
Billy Coogan put his BMW M3 to the test with John Smithwick on the notes the pair had a good day and finished 29th overall. Ken Treacy and Martin Comerford competed in a hired DJ motorsport Citroen C2 R2 the same car their used for their debut in Rally GB last year.
The pair had a good run over the stages and finished 53rd overall and 5th in class 6. Kilkenny man Tony Canny with David O Brien on the notes had an enjoyable day finishing 6 in the hotly contested class 10.
The annual Tynagh Sprint is next up for Carlow Car Club on March 14 followed by the Stages Rally and MkII challenge in May the launch night for the Rally will be held in the Lord Bagenal Hotel Leighlinbridge on April 1.
