Michael Carbin made his return to two wheel drive rallying for the first time since 2012 to take part in last weekend’s Killarney Historic Rally. Using a historic spec Ford Escort Mk2 of Niall Maguire’s, he along with navigator Dean O’Sullivan finished 11th overall and 5th in class D5 after a demanding 7 stage rally which included three runs of the iconic ‘Molls Gap’ and two runs each of ‘Ballaghbeama’ and ‘Kilgobnet’. They took a cautious approach to the first loop of stages as Michael got to grips with the rear wheel drive Escort after spending the last ten years with the more powerful and all wheel drive Mitsubishi Evo. By the time they had finished the third pass of Molls Gap, they had set a time some 32 seconds faster than their first run.
Conor Mohan was also in action, once again navigating for Eamonn Kelly. Their day came to a very quick end as the engine in their historic spec Escort gave up on the approach to the gap towards the end of SS1.
The winning of the Historic section was nip and tuck all day where Craig Breen/Paul Nagel and Jonny Greer/Niall Burns battled it out for the honours. Going into the final stage ‘Molls Gap 3’ both crews sat on exactly the same time, having both been rallying for 50:00.6s. Unfortunately, the Ex Frank Meagher Ford Sierra Cosworth RS of Breen/Nagel wouldn’t make it to the start of the final stage as they would break a driveshaft on the road section between Service out and the stage start. Having a 20+ second advantage over now 2nd placed Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy the pressure was off, not that it showed as Greer set a stage time just 1.8s shower than he previous run to take a famous victory.
In the Modified section of the rally, Monaghan was well represented. 2nd overall went to Daniel McKenna/Andrew Grennan. They finished 38.5s behind the Toyota Corolla Twincam of Kevin Eves/Chris Melly. Johno Doogan/Paul Lennon were in 4th OA after SS6, 0.6s in arrears of Dessie Keenan/Jason McKenna. However, on the last stage the beat Keenan/McKenna by 5.3s to take 3rd. Keenan/McKenna had to settle for 4th.
Raymond Conlon/Paul Sheridan finished 6th OA and 2nd class 6. Gary McCrudden navigated Aidan Bourke to 14th OA and 6th class 6. Trevor Burke navigated Mervyn Deane to 30th OA and 9th class 6. Kevin Flanaghan/Mark Reilly finished 46th OA and 1st class 1.
Sam Moffett/Keith Moriarty retired after SS4 with engine troubles, he was soon joined by his brother Josh as he and John Rowan also retired after SS4 with a broken drive shaft. Some consolation for Josh will be the amount of videos of him with the Starlet in full drift mode around almost every corner. Gary McPhillips/Ger Conway retired after SS4 also.
Elsewhere, Brendan Cumiskey/Martin Connolly finished 2nd OA at the Coppermines Grizedale Stages Rally in the UK while Arthur Kierans guided Alan Carmichael to 18th OA.
PRO Oisín Sherlock oisinsherlock97@gmail.com
County Monaghan Motor Club 