Elliott takes national rally title

Patrick Elliott settled his season-long battle with Niall Maguire for the National Rally Championship by winning the Galway Summer Rally on Sunday. The Cavan businessman was delighted with his success, but disappointed that his Monaghan rival crashed out on the fifth stage. 'It"s great to have got it,' said Patrick yesterday morning. 'I suppose in the overall scheme of things, it"s an achievement I"ve been aiming for over the last seven or eight years… 'As to where I go from here - I don"t know, I haven"t given it any thought. I don"t know whether I"ll stay with the National [championship] or go with the Tarmac, though in all honesty, I"ll probably stay.' Patrick pointed out that the Irish Tarmac Championship effectively means eight weeks away from work instead of the 10 weekends competing in the Dunlop National Championship involves, and 'taking that amount of time of work is too much, especially in the current climate'. What that means is that rally fans will see Patrick back on the national rally stages next year, defending his title and competing again with Niall Maguire. The notion of rallying abroad does not appeal to him: 'In 2001 I did a number of rallies in Europe, but it comes back to money and it"s horrendously expensive to take a car and crew out there - it means having guys on the road for 10 days. 'To be honest I"d put the Donegal rally ahead of those rallies. Killarney and Donegal are two of the best rallies in Europe, and the competition is fierce.' He is not planning to do Rally Ireland in 2009 either, as the Galway International is part of his programme and the budget does not stretch to both events. He had discussed taking part in the Irish round of the World Rally Championship with this regular co-driver, Paul Goodman, and when they decided to give it a miss, Paul signed up to help with the organisation of the WRC event. Paul was unable to compete in Galway at the weekend (Damien Connolly took over for him), and therefore has not won the co-driving title; he and Patrick will go to the next round of the National Championship in Clare in an attempt to secure the 2009 title for him. They are also going to do the Cork 20, hoping to get further than last year, when the Impreza crashed on the first stage. Discussing the Galway event, Patrick said: 'I was very disappointed that he [Niall] went out of the rally. Continued on page 32