|
|
Mondello 2 Day Irish Interprovincial Championship 2010 |
||||
|
TRADE STAND LINKS: Trade Stands in the paddock 100 Euro Per day - All proceeds go to the Prize Fund! The Rallysport Association on Facebook
|
|
||||
|
Inter-Provincial Rallysprint Challenge incorporating Rounds 7 & 8 of the Winter Championships 2010 Mondello Park, Co Kildare Saturday & Sunday 27th & 28th February 2010 A final entry of 173 drivers lined up at the start line at Mondello Park International Race Circuit on Saturday the 27th February for the start of the first of two days of the first ever Irish Inter Provincial Rallysprint Championship hosted by The Rallysport Association. It was the first ever event run by RSA south of the border and despite the intense reaction of Motorsport Ireland and their quite direct, and legally challengeable approach to their licence holders to not support the event, it was a huge success. 150 drivers competed on the Sunday event and the competition over the both days on Mondello’s beautiful international race facility was electric. It was a delight to watch as each stage session gave spectators continual high speed action for 40 minutes and with a short break at the end of each stage for car recovery both days rolled round like clockwork. The Rallysport Association introduced its new, latest development, state of the art TAG Heuer Timing System for the first time and all competitors enjoyed the high definition display of their own and competitors times in the pre stage area in the pits. The weather for both days was in the main crisp and dry but a bit of rain towards the end of each day added a little spice to the final results. Saturday Class 1 for the juniors in their regulated Novas and Corsa’s was a very close affair between the trio of Amy Cox, Shea Rogers and Darren O’Brien and in the end Shea grabbed the win by 3.5 seconds from Darren who finished just only 0.9 seconds in front of Amy.
Class 2 was dominated by the consistently quick Ian Crozier in his immaculately prepared Nova who finished nearly a minute ahead of David Maybin and Ian’s brother Geoffrey finished in third. Class 3 saw a fantastic duel between 16 year old Thomas Wedlock from Co. Cavan and ex class 2 champion David Stevenson but when the rain came Thomas pulled out all the stops and extended his lead to 26 seconds at the end of stage six. Ronan Rudden also took advantage of the damp conditions to improve his margin and pulled back to take a well deserved third. John Devine was absolutely on the pipe over the first three stages in his seriously fast Honda Civic while Donegal’s Stephen Bradley and Leinster representative James Hughes were also knocking on the winner’s door. In the end some superb driving in the rainy conditions by James brought him home his first RSA win, Bradley reeled in nearly seven seconds on the last stage on Devine to pip him to the post by only 0.6 of a second! Class 5 which was a delight to watch as always with the competitors in their immaculately prepared Escorts and Sunbeams. Stewart Rankin, Hugh Watson and Dessie Kearney were doing battle all day for the top class honours and in the end with some superb stage times it was ‘crooner’ Kearney as he is known to his close friends, notched up six out of six fastest times to take a well deserved win from Hugh and Stewart less than two seconds behind.  Photo Onsite-Event Photography Class 6 for the 16 valve rear wheel drive cars had 38 starters with some beautifully turned out Toyota Corollas, Escorts, Sierras and some interesting hybrid cars. The dual driven 2.5 litre Escort of Munster crew Paudrig Egan and Brian O’Shaughnessy traded places all day with some fantastic drives. Colm Coughlan was phenomenally fast with two sub four minute stages but did not fare so well on the wet tar. In the end the class win went to Derek Gurney by 24 seconds in his superbly prepared Sierra with Egan coming home in second and teammate O’Shaughnessy 4 seconds adrift in third The special class 7 enjoyed a ding dong battle between Sean Woods, Hugh McAvoy, Robert and John Whelan and young Josh Moffett who posted four fastest stage times to go into stage five looking like the favourite for the win, all competing in RT 2000 race cars. The rain cost Josh an expensive 40 seconds on stage five as he was on slicks in the heavy rain and he dropped off the leaderboard. John Whelan recovered after a poor start and took the class win from Sean by a comfortable 17 seconds and Hugh a further 17 seconds in arrears.
Photo Onsite-Event Photography Class 8 for turbo cars enjoyed a mix of EVO’s and Impreza’s and it was local lads Les Coogan and Fionan Reid who were making the early pace. Seamus McDaid and Gary Cartmill in his EVO started to real the leaders in on stages three and four but the local knowledge of Coogan was paying off when the weather turned about on stage five. Les romped home the clear winner by 15.5 seconds from Seamus with a margin of three seconds from the impressive Gary Cartmill a clear 5 seconds in front of championship leader Fionan Reid. The RT2000 race cars took the top three places on the time sheets however as by RSA rules are excluded from the Overall Winners trophy. It went to Les Coogan with a superb performance in his Impreza, Seamus McDaid took second spot and the highly impressive Derek Gurney in his normally aspirated Sierra claimed the last podium place. Sunday. The competitors awoke at the circuit on Sunday morning to a frosty misty morning but by the first timed run of the day the conditions had improved considerably. The full international circuit was again used but this time in the opposite direction. Several new competitors had joined in for the Sunday event which was also round eight of the RSA Winter Championship. In class 1 Darren O’Brien got off the blocks with an immediate 7 second advantage over championship leader Amy Cox and continued to post fastest stage times as the day progressed. Shea Rogers overhauled Amy by stage four to take second place, and by the finish was thirteen seconds in front. Philip McCullough just missed out on a podium place by just 2 seconds and came home forth. Class 2 saw Ian Crozier take his second class win of the weekend ahead of David Maybin who just managed to keep Keith Neil in third by 1 second despite Keith pulling back over 5 seconds on the last stage. David Stevenson and Alan Shaw had a fantastic duel all day and it was David’s quick times in the early stages that paid dividends and he came home the victor by 11 seconds from Shaw with Ronan Rudden taking an excellent third place 20 seconds behind. There were some seriously fast cars on the stage in Class 4 but it was the speed of the C2R2 of Stephen Lipsett that had everyone talking. Then when Thomas O’Rourke in his 2 litre powered Astra started to reel in the RT2000 of clear leader Hugh McEvoy in stages three and four and then clock sub four minute times on earned him the clear lead by 39 seconds from the impressive Lipsett with Stephen Smith picking up the third place spot.  It was a four way battle in Class 5 between Hugh Watson, Dessie Kearney, Mark McGrath and Stewart Rankin however Desssie, determined to prove his skills were not only reserved for singing, consistently clocked excellent stage times in his Mark 2 to take the second win of the weekend and take some vital championship points of close rival Watson. Mark McGrath pipped Rankin to the post for the third place by only three seconds.
Photo Onsite-Event Photography Derek Gurney was determined to show everyone a clean pair of heels in class 6 and started where he had finished the previous day. He claimed the first four fastest times until Colm Coughlan move up a gear on the last two stages but it wasn’t enough and Derek brought home win number two of the weekend by 7 seconds from the hard charging Coughlan who finished just under a minute in front of Brian Black in his screaming 1400cc Starlet. A string of non finishes cost many of the RT 2000 cars dearly in Class 7 and left Hugh McEvoy the comfortable winner from Robert Watson in second place.
Photo Onsite-Event Photography Les Coogan had is act well and truly polished from the previous day and was consistently 5 seconds faster on each stage from nearest rival and championship leader Fionan Reid. Damian O’Hagan in his EVO was knocking on the door but in the end had to settle for third place less than three seconds behind the flying Reid. His consistency paid off and it was Coogan in his Impreza who took home his second win of the weekend by a huge margin of 29 seconds. Thomas O’Rourke, in his 2 litre Astra was the overall winner, absolute, over all comers. The provincial championship trophy was won by Ulster by a huge margin mainly due to the high percentage of regular Ulster drivers who had made the trip south to Mondello however there were some excellent performances from competitors from the other provinces and it is highly likely that the destination of this trophy will change in the coming years. Stephen Lipsett was the fastest Ulster driver on the day and he was presented with the trophy on behalf of his province. The event was a great success and all the competitors are now looking forward to returning to Mondello Park again. For information on this and other events watch this website.
|
|||||
