Gareth MacHale Rallying - Mutiny Rally

Posted: June 7, 2004 8:21 PM

Unfortunately for the Garyaron Homes backed 206 this plan was disrupted slightly after Gareth clipped rut after a chicane four miles into the first stage. With the wishbone damaged the steering was extremely poor for the remaining nine miles of the stage. The young Dubliner managed to crawl his way out of the stage to lie fourteenth in the Peugeot standings. “I immediately knew our chances were gone, but I wasn’t going to give up”. With the car repaired in service Gareth set about improving his position and was soon up to sixth. Even with the repairs he had to perform three point turns at some of the hairpins because of the steering. “I was happy enough with my times” was Gareth’s comment after he set some respectable times to match the leaders on some of the remaining stages. “Given our position there was no point pushing too hard”. Sixth was a good result considering what happened but it looks likely to be one of our dropped scores.

The next round in the Swansea Bay rally and includes some real classics that I can’t wait to have a go at. At home it was a busy week with the launch of the Punchestown Rally Experience, which will be backed by Sony PlayStation and where I’ll also get my first taste of WRC power with the Sony backed Corolla WRC. Another launch this week was my new website www.garethmachale.com which will start taking shape over the next couple of weeks.

As usual backing comes from Colm McEvoy Auctioneers, Garyaron Homes, Allsports Logistics Pacenotes and the irishrallycalendar.com.

• www.garethmachale.com

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17/05/04
Gareth MacHale Rallying - MacHale’s Maximum Manx
For Gareth MacHale competing on the Roush Manx Rally marked only his second ever visit to the island. Having previously been there at the age of five his lack of knowledge of the stages would put him at a great disadvantage.

Gareth commented, “It is one of the classic events with very famous stages”. The McGarrity Motorsport tended machine was setup perfectly for the island though and a maximum charge was on the way. A clean run over the opening night stage on Friday evening was the only happy part of the first three stages as three overshoots on the next two would see Gareth drop well down the order. Fastest time on the fourth would promote him to third and leave him thirty seconds behind Chris Moore and Stuart Jones. Saturday morning would see the start of yet another MacHale comeback charge. Time was rapidly made up on the leader Chris Moore and when his driveshaft failed on the seventh stage Gareth was up to second and only a handful of seconds off the lead.

The lead was soon to be Gareth’s and Stuart Jones was now struggling with driveshaft problems of his own. “Visibility was down to about thirty yards in places which was very tricky flying through the cattle gates.” With seven of the stages run in the fog Gareth found this to be his hardest challenge ever, but showed great composure to hold his nerve and the lead to the end. In doing so he held of Ieuan Rowlands by over twenty seconds and took his second victory of the year and returned to the head of the Peugeot TOTAL 206 Super Cup again. Not only did Gareth top the Peugeots but he finished inside the top thirty was the first homologated two wheel drive car home. “The stages were fantastic and I cannot wait to come back”. Next for us is the Mewla Rally and I’ll be looking to keep up our winning pace and will be going for win number three. As usual backing comes from Colm McEvoy Auctioneers, Garyaron Homes, Allsports Logistics and the irishrallycalendar.com.

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08/04/03 Round 2 Entering round two of the Peugeot Total 206 Super Cup as championship leader Gareth MacHale was looking to increase his championship lead. Knowing he was coming up against some stern local knowledge from Ieuan Rolands and Stuart Jones, Gareth was prepared to have a good go at the North Wales event.

As with most things in life not everything goes according to plan, and when a re-seeded car left the road in front of him on the opening stage the Championship leader had to stop to offer assistance. Fortunately the crew were unhurt and Gareth continued but dropped about twenty seconds to his rivals. Trying hard to make up some of this time on the following stage would see a high speed overshoot over some logs and a time consuming engine stall was the result.

Ending the first loop some 55 seconds adrift of the leaders and in eight place Gareth decided to put in one of his customary charges and try and salvage some championship points. Climbing swiftly to fifth place Gareth was soon to find himself swapping times with the leaders. With too big a gap ahead Gareth decided to pace himself to the finish. With the stages being very muddy a sensible and mature approach would see him take fifth. “The stages were very slippy, but I would love to have done them on a dry event as the mud made it a bit of a lottery”

Next on the list for the Dubliner in the Pacenotes backed 206 is the Manx National which returns to Gareth’s favoured surface, tarmac. As usual backing comes from Colm McEvoy Auctioneers, Garyaron Homes, Allsports Logistics and the irishrallycalendar.com.

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01/03/04
FLYING START FOR MacHALE
Gareth MacHale continued on where he left off after winning the last round of the winter cup with victory on the opening round of the new Peugeot 206 Cup on the Sunseeker rally in Bournemouth.

A cautious approach to the two opening Super Specials around the promenade in Bournemouth would see Gareth enter the forests six seconds down on 206 expert Chris Moore.

Knowing he could not afford any slip ups Gareth pushed from the very first stage on Saturday morning to haul himself into contention for the lead. Gareth’s only problem for the whole day arose on the fourth stage when he caught a punctured 206 runner and dropped 25 seconds. Already on a quick pace Gareth had to up it another gear and he arrived into the final loop 8 seconds behind Stuart Jones.

The penultimate stage would see Gareth throw caution to the wind as he took 13 seconds out of Jones to lead the event and hold onto it through the last stage. Commenting afterwards Gareth said “I was delighted to win the first round, it was my first time on the event and my first time on snow, which I loved” “It was a very hard rally and the car ran faultlessly thanks to Gerry McGarrity Motorsport and Asquith Autosport”. Backing once again came from Colm McEvoy Auctioneers, Garyaron Homes and new sponsor Allsports Logistics.