2005 Northern Ireland Rally Championship

Posted: November 23, 2005 7:51 PM - 12661 Hits

Final Championship Points
Championship Rounds

Posted: November 23, 2005 7:51 PM

24/09/05
Report after Round 7
Glenn Allen in the BA Components Toyota Corolla WRC continues to lead the championship by 7 points from Kevin Lynch in the unstoppable KPL Utilities Subaru Impreza S9 WRC. These 2 have dominated the top 2 positions on almost every round this year with Kevin winning 6 rounds from 6 starts in the series but now is the time for dropped scores to come into play. Round 8 of the championship takes place this Saturday (24th September 2005) and the Dungiven man only has to finish 4th or higher (among championship registered competitors) to leap-frog Glenn into first place and secure his 2nd championship win. The Cookstown man will be doing his very best to stop Kevin making it 7 wins as the Corolla has shown over the last few events to be capable of matching Kevins pace.

Group N leader Neil McCance from Comber is fighting over 3rd place with Clogher man Craig Bennett in his Ford Focus RS WRC and Raymond Johnston from Ballinamallard in a Subaru Impreza WRC. Craig is really looking forward to this weekend as he hopes to have sorted the gravel set-up for the car and with some testing completed, they are confident to do well. The Group N battle will no doubt involve previous rally winner, Robbie McGurk, but the Group N Championship points fight will once again be between Neil and John McGlaughlin from Cookstown. Neil has had the upper hand so far but John is determinded not to make it easy for him.

04/05/04
Report after Round 3 - Easter Stages
The championship left the race circuits behind and ventured out onto the public roads this time as the Northern Ireland Championship contenders led the Circuit of Ireland runners into the Fermanagh countryside. Our reigning champion and championship leader opted not to take part this time as he was tempted away to contest the full Circuit of Ireland race instead. This left the championship wide open for the lead to be in someone else’s hands by that evening.

St Angelo Airfield was the first test and it really was a test for both driver and car. It wasn’t a very long stage but it was a treacherous one. First into the stage was the first to fall foul of the conditions. Kieran Shaw and Crawford Henderson knew that the rally could only be lost on this stage but the very slippery concrete pulled their Mitsubishi off the road for almost a minute before finally letting them back onto the stage again. Their bad luck had shown everyone else the danger and luckily enough no one else suffered the same fate. They carried on to the proper stages after that but problems arose on the second stage where Kieran decided that enough was enough and they had lost too much time to continue any further. But they weren’t the only top runners to quit early. Craig and Rodger Bennett were very much looking forward to repeating or bettering their 3rd place finish last time round but some oil was leaking onto the turbo creating a fire risk so they decided to not take any further chances and retired from the rally. Gary White and Tom Brown had no choice either as the Escort Cosworth began to overheat in the 2nd stage. They couldn’t get the engine to cool down so they too decided not to proceed any further. Disappointing after such a good run, winning the Kilbroney Stages Rally only a week ago.

Finishing 5th overall and 2nd in Group N was Neil McCance and Sean Ferris. The Comber man is really getting to grips with the Evo 8 and he will be one to watch as they year goes on. One place ahead of them was the man most determined toward the end of the rally. Dickie Curran and Gary Lyons were driving the same car his son Mike was driving on round one and they too were turning heads. No one expected Dickie to step put of a Group N car and be right at the sharp end of the rally leaderboard. Dickie was fighting away in 2nd place for most of the day but a small excursion toward the end cost them almost 2 minutes and dropped them to 4th. 3rd overall was a fine finish for Terry McGonigle and Sean Harris. The Strabane man has been trying hard to get a good finish so far this year and has shown the potential but has suffered from bad luck until now also taking the Group N win in the Evo 8. Another man to buy a new car and move up from the Group N category to a World Rally Car was Raymond Johnston with Richard Bell on the notes. Raymond too has shown real potential over the first 2 rounds as he got to know his new acquisition but he really came to the fore in his home county. Fighting with Dickie Curran for 2nd place for most of the day, Raymond finally took that 2nd place once Dickie fell back and has shown that when the championship moves into the forests – Raymond will be one to watch closely.

But the winners couldn’t have done anything more. After hiring Eugene Donnelly’s Toyota Corolla WRC for the first two rounds of the championship, Glenn Allen fell in love with the Toyota and went out to buy his own. Debuting the car at the Easter Stages was a bold move as getting to know a new car on the narrow roads could have been costly. Luckily enough the Cookstown man was guided past the dangers by Damien Connelly and took the rally lead convincingly from the beginning of the event until the end and also took the lead of the Northern Ireland Rally Championship too. And if that wasn’t enough he took another leaf out of the Donnelly hand book and travelled to Mitchelstown to compete in the 2nd round of the Irish Forestry Championship the next day.

Full Championship Points & Short articles / reports are available on the ANICC website

www.anicc.org.uk

18/01/05
2005 Pacenotes Northern Ireland Rally Championship
The Northern Rally Championship is the premier car-rallying arena of Northern Ireland with several of it's events televised on satellite and terestrial television.

www.anicc.org.uk

www.2and4wheels.com

Topics: Northern Ireland Rally Championship

2005 Northern Ireland Rally Championship

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