Carlow Rally to mark Irish debut of Toyota Yaris Rally2. 

Irish rallying history will be made in Calow next weekend at the fourth round of the Triton Showers Motorsport      Ireland National Rally Championship.

The regular championship protagonists will have something new to contend with as Welsh driver Meiron Evans will give the Toyota Yaris Rally2 its Irish debut on the May 19 event. 

Although Evans is a regular in Ireland, he is not registered for the Irish National Rally Championship, instead, he is using the nine-stage rally as a high-speed shakedown for the following weekend’s Jim Clarke Rally, the third round of this year’s British Rally Championship. 

Still, the appearance of Evans will give the National regulars plenty to think about. 

Josh Moffett is the top seed for the Seven Oaks Hotel-sponsored rally. He and co-driver Keith Moriarty took a start-to-finish victory on the Birr Rally in mid-April, to mark two in a row, following their win on home ground in Monagan a few weeks earlier. 

The Monaghan victory was also a historic occasion as it was the first time a Citroen C3 Rally2 won a round of the Irish National Rally Championship. 

Their closest rivals, in terms of the championship and event wins, are Josh’s brother Sam and his co-driver James O’Reilly.

The Hyundai i20 Rally2 crew are leading the championship on the back of a Mayo victory and two-second places in Monagan and Birr. 

West Cork’s Daniel Cronin and his co-driver Donnachadh Burke were second in Mayo and fourth in Birr and remain very much in the title hunt. A win for them would also mark the first win of the season for the Volkswagen brand. 

Adding to the inter-marque rivalry in Kilkenny man Eddie Doherty and co-driver Tom Murphy. They drive a Skoda Fabia R5 and going by their third overall on the recent International Rally of the Lakes, they are not far off a maiden National win either. 

Enda O’Brien and John Butler are another crew armed with a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 and they too had one of their best results to date in Killarney. 

Former National champion Declan Boyle and co-driver Patrick Walsh add to the Citroen C3 tally and will start at seven. 

The top ten is completed by the VW Polo of Aidan Wray VW Polo GTI R5, the Ford Fiesta R5 of Gary Kiernan and Michael Boyle who is another Polo. 

Triton Showers man Paul Barrett starts at 11 in a third Citroen. 

MODIFIED CATEGORY 

The modified category carries extra intrigue this year as the Carlow Car Club is celebrating 20 years of the Ford Escort Challenge. 

The Darrian T90 GTR of Kevin Gallagher and Ryan Moore Moore lead the very strong field and will be hard to beat given recent form. The Donegal-based crew arrive in the South East on the back of a category win in Birr. 

A host of the country’s top Escort drivers and contenders follow them including Edward O’Callaghan Daniel McKenna, local man David Condell, Colin O’Donoghue, 

Chris O’Callaghan, Jonathan Pringle, and Frank Kelly. 

Class 2 has delivered all sorts of hard-fought battles this year and Carlow will be no exception. The top seed in the class is Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy member Craig Rahill and he is joined by Matthew Boyle, Craig Rahill, Tommy Moffett, Dylan Eves, and Dylan Donoghue. 

The top seed in the Junior element of the rally is Donegal’s Kyle McDaid in a Honda Civic while the historic class is headed up by the non-registered Gwyndaf Evans but championship leader Davy Armstrong is the second seed. 

The rally begins with a ceremonial start in Carlow town centre on Saturday night ahead of nine stages across approximately 110 kilometres with service after every three stages. The first car leaves part ferme at 8:55 and full route details are published in the official programme which will be available locally from the middle of next week.