Jason Murphy seals Motorsport Ireland Irish Forestry Championship J1000 title in Cork
Jason Murphy is the first Irish rally champion to be crowned in 2018
An eventful day on the first leg of the Jim Walsh Cork 2 day Forest Rally, which saw Jason and Matthew Murphy in their Peugeot 107 get caught out on a fast 4Right corner on stage 2, the car slid wide and onto grass, and they found themselves as passengers ending up in a drain damaging the wishbone, unable to get back out onto the stage. They got recovered and got back into service and thanks to fellow J1000 competitor Peter Beaton from Scotland for the use of his spare wishbone and great work once again from C-Sport they got back out under rally 2 for stages 5 and 6 to enable them to score valuable championship points.
Day 2 on Sunday’s round had full points on offer and they now looked to that to that to try to wrap up the J1000 title.
And the South Mayo uncle and nephew partnership certainly showed their title intentions as they completely dominated the second leg on Sunday, setting fastest times on five out of the six stages with their 1.0 Litre Peugeot 107 leading all throughout the second day to wrap up the 2018 Motorsport Ireland Irish Forestry Championship title and secure back to back National J1000 wins for the 18 year old Student from Shrule, County Mayo.
Speaking afterwards Jason said : “The stages were great, but we had to stay sensible and get home to the finish with a few points, so we planned to stay out of trouble after yesterdays mishap, It wasn’t looking too good at one point, but thanks to C-Sport again and the assistance from Peter Beaton we made it back out, I suppose you could say once we got started this morning we got into a rhythm and found it easier to focus and we were very happy with our times today. To clinch back to back championship titles is brilliant, and it’s been a great year, a great series, and to have my uncle Matthew win the co- drivers class is an extra bonus.”
“There’s a lot of people behind the scenes that have helped me a lot, Mum and Dad and my brother Niall have been at every event all year helping along and a massive thanks to Mairt Cunningham and the C-sport Rally prep team for looking after the car all year, and of course Ray Fitzpatrick and the forestry team for running the J1000 series and Michael O’Brien for coming onboard again as Championship sponsor. It feels fantastic, hard to put into words, I’m just delighted,” Jason concluded.
