Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin will turn their attention to this weekend’s Circuit of Ireland after a difficult British Rally Championship opener in Lancashire on Saturday.
The Killarney and District Motor Club crew lead the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship after taking victory on the opening two rounds in Galway and Cork.
The Dungannon, County Tyrone-based Circuit of Ireland Rally on Easter Saturday is the third round and the Cork/Kerry pairing is the event’s second seeds
Their dual assault on the British Rally Championship – Cronin is chasing a record-equalling fifth title – did not get off to the best of starts on the North West Rally last Saturday,
The second stage saw Cronin and Galvin pick up a puncture, and worse was to come on the following test when their Fiesta broke a driveshaft.
Later in the day Cronin and Galvin encountered further difficulties. Their Ford Fiesta Raly2’s launch control did not function, they spun on the stage, and the handbrake was also causing problems. To add to their woes, the weather for the afternoon loop turned much wetter, when they had gambled on cut slick dry weather tyres.
“It was just one of those rallies”, said Cronin at the finish of the final stage.
“We made a wrong tyre choice in the morning, and we were a bit braver for the second part of the day, but we were completely wrong, we were on slicks pretty much for that rain, so it was not enjoyable. We were missing the handbrake as well, so we had to reverse in some of the hairpins.”
Their main opposition in Tyrone this weekend will come from defending Circuit of Ireland and Irish Tarmac Rally champions, Callum Devine, and Noel O’Sullivan from Muckross.
The Derry/Kerry pairing gave Cronin and Galvin a run for their money on the recent West Cork Rally clouted a sport on the final Saturday stage and retired from second overall.
There is plenty of other Kerry interest in the famous Easter weekend rally, now confined to just one day’s action, compared to the marathon five and six-day events in the 1970s and 1980s.
Conor Murphy and Sean Colins will be hoping to put their recent run of bad engine look behind them. The Ford Escort Mk2 crew retired from the West Cork Rally on the opening Friday night leg with engine drama and only barely made the finish of the Galway International Rally in February with similar woes.
There are a host of Kerry co-drivers on the entry list. Currow’s John McCarthy resumes his partnership with Banbridge’s John Devlin in a Ford Escort.
Welshman Tomas Davies won the historic section of the West Cork Rally and on this occasion, London-based Rockfield navigator Shane Buckley will guide him.
Duagh’s Ciara Griffin is on pacenote duty for Armagh’s Stephen Conn in a BMW M1,
The Browne dynasty from Brosna is also well-represented on the entry list. Colm is currently based in Dungannon and he will be co-driven by Michael in their Ford Escort G3.
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Kerry Motorsport News 