Donegal’s Paddy McVeigh and Gary McElhinney took the overall win on last weekend’s Abbey Hotel Midlands Stages Rally. The Tir Connell men had a battle royale throughout the day with Daniel McKenna and Arthur Kierans who returned to the Irish tarmac in their trusty Mark II escort after a years absence while competing in the BRC. In the end the WRC subaru of McVeigh/McElhinney proved too much and excelled in the mucky conditions to take a 10 second win from the trying Monaghan men. Local Longford man Tommy Doyle and Liam Moynihan were 3rd overall in a Renault Clio ahead of last years winner Chris Armstrong who was 4th. Monaghans Richard Moffett and Martin Connolly survived an early altercation with a chicane to round off the top five in their starlet.
As always local Monaghan crews were in the hunt for many class awards with Michael Carbin and Emmett McCooey finally getting the result they deserve in 6th overall and a class 20 win. Jim McKenna and Thomas Treanor finished 15th overall and 3rd in class 14, ahead of Jack Maguire and Andy Hayes. Barry Treanor and Colm Connolly had an excellent run in their new escort to take the highly competitive class 11R win and 24th overall. David Smith and Mark Deery had a troubled opening loop when they got road penalties after loosing oil pressure but recovered well to take 44th overall. Declan Connolly and Alison Hughes won class 1 in the civic.
As with every event their will always be non-finishers and unfortunately Midlands Stages was no different for the travelling Monaghan men. Damian Hagan coaxed Ciaran McGorman out of retirement to call the notes but their rally ended on stage 3 when the gearbox packed in. David Moffett and Fintan Sherry’s luck ran out on the last loop of stages when lying 3rd in class with alternator and fan belt issues. Martin McPhillips and Ciaran Tynan were also forced into retirement on the 4th stage when they broke a half shaft. Kevin Cleere and Michael Donnellan crashed out on the 6th stage.
So that’s it from Roscommon and the Abbey Hotel Midlands Stages Rally. Killarney Rally of the lakes is on this weekend and we wish all the travelling local crews the best of luck.
Monaghan Motor Club Annual Stages Rally
With just under a month to go until Monaghan’s biggest event of the Motorsport calendar, CoC Brendan Flynn and his team are hard at work with the final preparations for this hugely popular event. Keep free the weekend of 26th/27th April and be a part of the action as all help is needed and greatly appreciated. Once again the Hillgrove Hotel will be the Rally HQ with stages to the South West of Monaghan town. Entries will be open in the coming week and keep an eye on this space over the next month for more updates.
Club Notes/PRO Details
Monaghan Motor Club have set up a new e-mail account solely for the purpose of receiving information from competitors and club members on their exploits throughout the year in all forms of motorsport competition. All competitors are urged to e-mail action photos (no watermarks) and a short note on how they got on in any event throughout the year. We need these details for weekly reports and Facebook news. The e-mail address is rallynews1@gmail.com Obviously we cannot guarantee everything will be published but your input would be greatly appreciated to try and cover all members and their endeavours.
County Monaghan Motor Club 