Tralee revs up for annual Circuit of Kerry Rally
Kerry Motor Club has attracted a top class entry for its Fel’s Point Hotel in association with Advanced Cleaning Circuit of Kerry Rally on Sunday.
Over 100 cars will leave the start ramp in Tralee town centre on Saturday night, ahead of them lies around 100km of competitive roads across classic stages in the North Kerry area.
Leading the field is local ace, Alan Ring ,in his Munster Joinery Subaru Impreza. Ring has never won the Circuit of Kerry but is a past winner of the Kerry Winter Rally and will be keen to add Kerry Motor Club’s flagship event to his CV.
Former Irish Tarmac champion Derek McGarrity starts at two and he has employed local co-driver Diarmuid Falvey on pace note duty. The pair have worked together in the past and have led Irish international rallies so will certainly be in contention for overall honours on the completion of the six stages on Sunday evening.
UK visitor Steve Wood starts at three in another Impreza with Abeeyfeale-based navigator Keith Moriarty in the passenger seat.
Next up is Kerry Motor Club members Kevin Barrett and Sean Mullally. Ballyduff-born Barrett heads a two car Triton Showers team that also includes his son Paul.
The Kerry interest continues throughout the entry list, last year’s Kerry Winter Rally winner Daniel Cronin and his Killarney co-driver start at six while Mike Quinn, one place behind in his Ford Escort is the top two-wheel drive seed and another former Winter Rally winner. Rounding off the top ten is Shanagolden’s Ed Synan with Kilflynn’s Denis O’Connell on the maps.
Killarney’s Derek Daly and Brian Doherty start at 20 in their Mitsubishi Lancer while Tom Relihan, Pat Barry, Charlie Hickey and Vincent O’Shea are all Kerry-based Ford Escort drivers in the top 40.
Darren Young from Tralee is one of the first front-wheel drive contenders in his Honda Civic and he and fellow Tralee man Sean Walsh start at 26.
PJ Down and John Young will be favourites to bag back-to-back titles in the Historic Section in their Talbot Sunbeam while Pat Lawlor from Ardfert is the top seed in the junior rally.
The rally gets underway with a 700pm ceremonial start on Tralee’ s Ashe St on Saturday evening.
The first car is due to leave Fel’s Point Hotel at 950am on Sunday morning. The main service park for the day is located the hotel’s main car park, with cars due to return just after 12 noon, just before 3pm and the final control is set for 5pm at the main entrance to the hotel.
Late entries are being accepted and can be lodged via www.kerrymotorclub.com, where full details of the event are published.
