Tourism in the North West is getting an end of year boost as thousands of competitors, support teams and fans converge for the first ever Irish round of the world rally championship. The event is sponsored by Failte Ireland and the Sports Council of Northern Ireland. Rally headquarters is based in the Clarion Hotel in Sligo Town, and the Service Park at The Sligo Institute of Technology will be the focus of activity during Rally Ireland week. This is a cross-border event. Of the fourteen stage locations, six are in Ulster and eight are in the Republic of Ireland. Apart from occasions at Monte Carlo and Sanremo, no other event in the history of the World Rally Championship has had stages in more than one country.
The men credited with the idea of Rally Ireland are Sean O’Connor and Ronan Morgan. Sean has been well known in recent years as Malboro’s commercial representative in Rallying. Ronan was for many years a successful international co-driver with the great Billy Coleman from Millstreet in Cork in the Rothmans BMW and Porsche years in the early 80’s and particularly with multiple Middle East Champion Mohammed Bin Sulayem. The person largely credited with the political aspects of cross border co-operation was Britain’s former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain.
The Media Centre will be based at the Service Park and Rally Ireland will broadcast to in excess of 50 million TV Viewers around the world. Highlights of the event will be viewed in176 countries. The WRTV Media Centre will incorporate a full production and editing suite and 5.5 hours of TV Broadcast will be relayed live or edited for later transmission in the Media Centre.
The Ceremonial Start at Stormont Castle on this Thursday 15th. Nov.will be broadcast live for 1.5 hours as will the final stage at Mullaghmore on next Sunday 18th. Nov. will broadcast live for one hour to an estimated 50 million viewers and will be seen all over the world.
There will be approximately 55 support Helicopters which will operate from either the Helipad in the Service Park or Strandhill Airport. These are various Rally Team Helicopters and some will help out in transporting various VIP’s and Sponsors to and from the special stages. There is also a helicopter manager appointed to monitor their movements.
There is also a special spectator area located in the Service Park as well as a Corporate Hospitality Suite. This provides a unique opportunity for spectators to get close to the major World Rally Teams like Ford, Subaru, Citroen, Stobart VK M-Sport Kronos as well as all the Irish Teams and see the cars being serviced and meet with their favourite drivers and to share first hand the atmosphere of a world event. Access to the service park will be from the Manorhamilton Road and tickets will cost 10 euro.
All the top world rally teams have entered for the event including The “Citroen Total World Rally Team”. Sebastien Loeb competed in Ireland already driving the Citroen C4 this year and had outright victories in both the Donegal and the Cork 20 International Rallies. His fact finding mission should help him to discover the winning secrets for the Irish event.
The BP-Ford World Rally Team have entered two drivers, Marcus Gronholm (Ford FocusWRC). Marcus competed in the Galway International Rally back in February and gained useful experience of rallying on tight and twisty Irish lanes . He was hoping for wet and mudding conditions to match the November weather but the weather was unseasonably dry and warm. He won the rally. The second Ford driver entered is Mikko Heirvonen who also competed in the recent Cork 20 Rally.
As both Gronholm and Loeb crashed out in the previous round in Japan two weeks ago, Gronholm starts the event with a four point championship lead over Loeb. If the drivers finish the season equal in points, Loeb will be the winner under the tie-deciding rules. All points count in both the drivers and makes championships.
In the manufacturers series, BP-Ford only need another five points to be champions, irrespective of the results of Citroen. Both series can be won in Ireland or equally can remain unresolved until the final round in Wales Rally GB in two weeks time.
The Spanish driver Dani Sordo will drive the second Citroen C4. Dani drove a Citroen Xsara WRC on the recent Cork 20 Rally also to gain some knowledge of the Irish roads.
The Subaru World Rally Team have entered three cars for Peter Solberg, Chris Atkitson and Xavier Pons. The Subaru Team have been testing recently in Britain trying to get the right suspesion set up for the Irish event.
Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team have entered six cars.
In addition to the two makes championship nominated entries for Jari-Matti Latvala and Henning Solberg, there are entries for Matthew Wilson, Garath Jones and Irish Drivers Eamonn Boland and Ray Breen, but none of the latter three cars will carry Stobart VK livery.
Irish drivers who are certain to thrill the rally enthusiasts are Kris Meek who is to use the Subaru which Eugene Donnelly used to win this years “Global Irish Tarmac” series. Donnelly will instead drive a Skoda Fabia WRC.
The MacHale family have also entered with Gareth MacHale entered at no. 20 driving a Ford Focus WRC, Gareth’s WRC career highlight was when he finished sixth in Rally Mexico last year, scoring Ireland’s first WRC point in 21 years. Billy Coleman finished fourth in Corsica with Rally Ireland co founder Ronan Morgan back in 1985 driving a BMW M3. Coleman still retains the record of being the highest placed Irish driver in a World Championship Rally. Ulstermen Paddy Hopkirk and Ronnie Adams both won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964 and 1956 respectively while Rosemary Smith won the Tulip Rally outright in the Netherlands in 1965. Gareth’s brother Aaron who won the Irish National Rally Championship this year is at no.26 also driving a Ford Focus WRC. Their father the legindary multiple Irish International Rally Champion Austin is seeded at no. 25.
There is also a big Clare involvement in Rally Ireland as a total of 110 Clare Motor Club officials will be travelling to Sligo for the weekend to help out. Gerry O’Brien from Crusheen was appointed Marshall Safety Co-Ordinator for Rally Ireland back in May, a former chairman of the Clare Motor Club Gerry has spent his time recruiting marshalls from Tipperary, Birr, Laois, Limerick Kerry and Clare and had to meet with all the various club’s get the members trained as marshall’s and allocate them their various locations on the particular stages. A huge task as it means dealing with up to a thousand people. Each location or junction on each of the special stages will have a Sector Marshall who is the person responsible for anything that happens at that location on the day. He or She would also be helped at the location by a number of other marshalls and would assist in crowd control and also make sure the location was safe. The Clare Club will be covering special stages 4 and 7 ( Lough Gill) on this Friday. Some of the Clare Marshalls will also be helping out on special stage 12 (Ballinamallard) which takes place around the countryside of the late Bertie Fisher. Ironically the stage finish is at the gates of the cemetary where Bertie Fisher is buried. Clare marshalls will also be on duty on Sunday in the Donegal Bay stage.
Meeting point for Clare Marshalls for the Lough Gill Stage is Newtown Manor Community Hall which is located close to the stage between 2.00am and 4.00am on friday morning. Marshall’s have to be in place at 5.00am and the road will be closed at 6.15am. The first competing car will be on the stage at 9.15am.
Meeting point for the Ballinamallard stage on saturday is 12 midnight at the service station in Trillick. Co. Tyrone and the meeting point for Donegal Bay stage is Ballintra Community Hall at 5am on Sunday morning. Gerry is responsible for having all these marshalls in place on the various stages on time.
There is a total of 1400 marshall’s required to run the stages on Friday, 1100 for Saturday and 1000 for Sunday. The Service Park at the Sligo Institute of Technology requires three five hour shifts of 80 marshalls each day.
Gerry is also responsible for marshalls for the Shakedown Stage which takes place on this Thursday morning at 7.00am. This is a 3killometer section of closed road approx 5 miles from Sligo Town in an area called Caultry where all the various WRC Teams will drive and test their cars at rally speed to try and get the best set up for the particular conditions before the rally starts. Stage commander for this stage is Clerk of the Course for the Clare Stages, Ennis man Jim Casey and assistant stage commander is Richard Casey from Ruan. The stage will finish at 21.00 noon approx.
The cars will then be transported to Parliament Buildings at Storemont in Belfast for the Ceremonial Start where a Super Special Stage through the grounds of the estate will take place and this will be broadcast live on television all over the world.
On this Friday morning the 16th. Nov. the restart will be in Sligo with three stages in counties Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo. The cars will then return to the service park in Sligo Town, then repeat the morning stages, and back to the service park again. Two different stages in counties Leitrim and Sligo and the final service and overnight halt in Sligo Town.
The Saturday restart is from Sligo and takes in three stages in Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh. There will be a Midday Service in Sligo followed by a repeat of the morning stages. The final Service and Overnight Halt is back in Sligo where a Street Carnival takes place at 7pm. After the Sunday Restart from Sligo the drivers take in two stages in County Tyrone followed by a stage in County Donegal. The final Stage is at Mullaghmore and this will be broadcast live on Television. Presentation of prizes will be at Mullaghmore followed by a Ceremonial finish at the Clarion Hotel in Sligo Town.
The Winners Trophy is entitled “Hands across the Divide”and is modelled on the life size sculpture by Maurice Harron which is located in Derry.