Published: Wednesday, 16th July, 2008 10:48am
MkII battle goes flat!
Brian O"Loughlin
Motorsport News had been talking up the potential of a MkII Escort battle between Gary McPhillips and Simon Mauger on the Sligo Stages Rally but the English visitor never really had a chance.
It wasn"t just Mauger that McPhillips and Mark Tierney blasted into the ditches on the early stages; they set the quickest time on the opening test by 24s - in front of WRC machinery - while Mauger and Brian Cammack languished in 19th.
Not that a position in the lower reaches of the top 20 was a disgrace for the visitors. They are front runners in the MSA Asphalt Rally Championship in Britain, but the Tarmac there is a world away from the twisty, bumpy lanes in the north west of this island. It meant that the battle didn"t happen, but it might"ve been curtailed anyway, as the Monaghan crew put their rapid Escort off the road on SS4, when they were second overall having recorded second quickest times on stages three and four.
Trevor Mulligan and Lisa Roe had been looking good for another top six result but SS4 caught them out as well, though it was a mechanical problem in their case. The car stopped and refused to start again and they lost 30 minutes. They eventually finished 68th and fourth in class. Daniel McKenna had been showing giant-killing form as well, and was more than three minutes ahead in his class, till he went off the road.
Another Escort man who is going well this year is James Cassidy from Moynalty. With John Norris alongside, he won this class and finished second 2WD overall on the ALMC Rally on July 6, consolidating their class lead in the Midlands East Rally Championship.
'We had a great oul run,' said James, '15th and won the class by over a minute. That was the fourth round of the championship - we"re leading the class and in the top three of that series'. James described the rally as 'a bit like last year, torrential rain, running water on the first two stages'.
'It dried out for the third, and at first service we were leading the class and 22nd overall. Then we got a great cut through the next three stages. We had a slight moment on SS5, we were very close to being off at a four right over a bridge, where there was still some standing water. We were travelling on the edge of a gripe about five foot deep, but we got through.'
The rain returned for SS7 when the Moynalty lads were 20s slower and they went well on the final two tests, despite breaking the exhaust on the last one. James is pleased to be doing well in the championship, as he hadn"t planned to do it until he and John received five bonus points for marshalling on the Birr rally.
'Nobody else in the class finished and we got the points just for marshalling, so we decided to give the championship a go,' he said. They have since scored maximum points on the Midlands and NE rallies and their next outing is in Oldcastle in August.
Trevor Mulligan had another sixth place on the ALMC and Thomas Carolan/ Declan Smith won class nine on that event. Sean Sharkey had a new co-driver, Dessie Sharkey, for the event, which the driver described as 'very fast', adding that 'for new co-driver it was hard to be in rally like that. The two of were finding a rhythm and it was only towards the end of day that we starting setting quicker times.'
The Sharkeys were lucky that a fuel pump problem manifested itself on the third stage, which was cancelled: 'Only for that would have been out of the rally, but we nursed it through and got to service,' said Sean. 'It was one of toughest rallies yet in sense that it was fast, no one could predict what tyres to use.' The next round of the Irish 205 Challenge is the Cork Forestry Rally in mid-August. Mervyn Wedlock took his rapid MkII back to the Loughgall Historic Festival two weeks ago, and showed good form in rapid company to finish fourth, and Mickey Conlon also scored a result there.
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