BY MARTIN WALSH
IN difficult conditions Ballylickey’s Daniel Cronin and his Dunmanway co-driver Donnacha Burke took their Cronin’s Centra-backed VW Polo GTi R5 to a strong second place in the Ballina-based Mayo Rally, the opening round of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship.
There was also a significant result for Dunmanway’s Jason McSweeney (Skoda Fabia R5) and his Blackpool co-driver Liam Brennan, who were fifth overall.
Dunmanway’s David Guest and his Mitchelstown co-driver Jonathan McGrath were in tenth place and moving up the leaderboard until the third stage when their RLA-hired Ford Fiesta Rally2 slid off and damaged a rear wheel.
The event was won by Monaghan’s Sam Moffett/James O’Reilly (Hyundai i20 Rally2), who led from the start and finished 43.5s ahead of Cronin/ Burke. The Kilkenny/Limerick duo of Eddie Doherty/Tom Murphy (Skoda Fabia R5) were 27.7s further behind in third.
No fewer than four of the top six were out of the equation on the opening stage. Reigning national champion and top seed Josh Moffett hit a bale that damaged the radiator of his Citroen C3 Rally2. Desi Henry and Declan Boyle, also in Citroen C3s, were in difficulty at the same location – Henry bowed out on the spot and although Boyle managed to get going, his rally ended a few kilometres later when he damaged the right rear wheel. Meanwhile, Michael Boyle (VW Polo GTi) crashed into a wall.
Sam Moffett was best through what proved to be an extremely slippery stage; he opened up a 22.5s lead over the Armagh’s Marty Toner (Proton Satria) with Ulsterman Aidan Wray (VW Polo GTi R5) 3.8s further behind. Daniel Cronin was fourth, 6.2 seconds off second place. McSweeney was sixth, he too had a moment when his Skoda ended up in a drain. Guest occupied 12th.
Cronin set the best time on SS2 to move to second, 19.8 seconds behind Moffett. McSweeney and Guest also moved up the order, the former was fifth and the latter tenth. On the repeat of both stages Moffett extended his lead over Cronin to 33.9 seconds, most of the time gained on SS3; Cronin was only a mere tenth of a second off Moffett’s time on SS4. McSweeney lost a place while Guest retired when he damaged the rear arm of the Acesigns liveried Fiesta.
The fifth stage was cancelled due to organisational issues and SS6 was interrupted when third-placed Tommy Doyle crashed his Hyundai i20 R5. With Cronin holding a 24.2-second lead over new third-placed James Ford (Citroen C3 Rally2) he was able to manage his rally over the closing pair of stages to take a valuable second place for his championship bid.
‘I didn’t think I was driving particularly well today, I had a good few mistakes but it’s great to come away with second,’ Cronin said.
‘It’s a good start and we can build on that. Even though the conditions were bad, you still had to push on. On a few of the stages I took it easy, I lost a chunk of time. It was the toughest rally I’ve ever done. On paper, it’s a big result.’
McSweeney took a well-earned fifth place. He commented: ‘Delighted with the result. It went very well for us. I actually like those conditions. It was also good to get seat time ahead of the West Cork.’
The next round of the series is the Monaghan Rally on April 7th.
