Ballinode resident Conor Mohan guided Eamonn Kelly to the top step of the podium on Secto Rally Finland last weekend.
The Finnish event counted as round 4 of the 2025 Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC). Eamonn and Conor took their Ford Fiesta Rally3 home in 1st place overall (OA), 8.3s ahead of the Australian pair and current JWRC leaders, Taylor Gill and Daniel Brkic.
The event began on Thursday morning with a Shakedown stage, followed by the first competitive Special Stage (SS) that evening ‘Harju 1’. On that first competitive special stage, Eamonn and Conor finished 2nd fastest, just 1.3s in arrears of the Turkish crew, Ali Türkkan/Oytun Albayrak.
Nine special stages were up on Friday, four new special stages each being used twice, followed by a second pass of the Thursday evening stage (Harju 2).
On SS2 Friday morning, Kelly/Mohan played it a little safe and dropped to 4th OA, albeit, still only 3.5s in arrears of 1st. The playing it safely phase ended abruptly as on SS3 they set the fastest time in the JWRC, despite commenting that they were a little slow at the start and that there was hanging dust from the previous cars on some of the very fast corners. They were now only 1.2s in arrears of 1st place. On SS4 however, they suffered a small overshoot, causing them to reverse. Despite this, the time at the finish of the stage showed that they had been well on the way to another stage win, as they only lost 1.2s to the leader. The weather took a turn for the worse on SS5, as they were hindered by a heavy downpour of rain during the stage. The downpour caused a few moments, a loss of rhythm which resulted in them loosing 2nd position, but they were still only 5.4s in arrears of 1st. The car developed a small technical issue during SS7 resulting in a little time loss, but they still maintained 3rd position OA. They got the technical issue delt with before SS8, resulting in a good stage time, but Eamonn stated that “I just did not push enough”. Despite not pushing enough, they did close the gap and were now only 0.1s adrift of 2nd place. On SS9 they duly took 2nd place OA, 13.2s adrift of the leading crew. On the final stage of the day, SS10, they did lose a few seconds to the leading crew but still maintained 2nd place going into Saturdays eight stages.
Saturdays eight stages were once again new, with four separate stages each being ran twice. Saturday’s stages were a lot more slippery than Fridays had been due to a heavy overnight rain. The slipperier road surface took a little getting used to, causing a moment near the start of SS11. Despite this moment, which lost them time to the leader, they still increased their advantage over the crew in 3rd place. SS13 was an extremely fast stage, and even with the distance being over 20km, the top four JWRC competitors were separated by less than one second, that stat just shows how tough it is to pull any advantage over fellow competitors. On SS14 Kelly/Mohan secured another stage win, which gained them slightly on 1st, but also greatly increased their advantage over 3rd place. On the next stage, SS15, they pulled a huge 5.2s back on 1st place, which reduced their deficit to 11.6s from 1st.
On Saturday’s penultimate stage, SS17, Eamonn and Conor took the lead of the event for the 1st time. The Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy team now held a 21.2s advantage over their nearest JWRC competitor. On SS18, the final stage of Saturday, they finished the 16.44km stage 2nd fastest, just a tiny 0.5s in arrears of fastest, meaning that they entered Sunday’s stages with a reasonably comfortable lead of 20.7s.
There were only two stages on Sunday, a repeated pass of the legendry 24km ‘Ouninpohja’ Honestly ‘legendry’ may be too small of a word to describe the stage. Check out Solberg/Mills record breaking run in 2004 and the Meeke/Nagle in-car from 2016 on YouTube.
With a 20.7s advantage. Eamonn and Conor did not have to go absolutely flat out over the two runs and rick an ‘off’ or a puncture. On the first pass of Ouninpohja (SS19), they set the 5th fastest time, 11.2s down on fastest, which only reduced their advantage over 2nd place to 20s, leaving them reasonably comfortable going into the final pass of that same stage. On the final run, they once again set the 5th fastest time, but most importantly got the car to the ‘Finnish’ line in perfect working order and still holding onto 1st place overall. This Finland win is Eamonn and Conor’s second outright win in the JWRC, as their first came on the Croatia Rally 2023.
At the end of one of, if not the most famous rally in the world, Eamonn and Conor took an 8.3s win over the current JWRC leaders Taylor Gill/ Daniel Brkic.
The JWRC comes to its conclusion at the next event, the Central European Rally 2025, which takes place between the 16th and 19th of October.
Killian McArdle was also taking part in Secto Rally Finland. Killian was navigating for John Coyne in a Ford Fiesta Rally3. Unfortunately, the pair retired on SS12 ‘Västilä 1’. They had been in 51st position overall when they retired.
County Monaghan Motor Club recently presented the monies raised from the Charity Static Car Show and Shine event held last June. All monies raised were donated to SOSAD and the Monaghan branch of Crocus.
Co. Monaghan Motor Club CLG, have just launched a new club App. The App will be the go-to location for all your motor club information. To download the App, just search ‘Monaghan Motor Club’ on your ‘Android’ or Apple’ device’s, App store. This App is for everyone; it is not just for club members and competitors.
Oisín Sherlock.
County Monaghan Motor Club 