Dogleap delight for Tyrone competitors

THERE was no shortage of title delight for Tyrone competitors at the Dogleap Rally.

The event, which put crews through their paces in the Cam and Springwell Forests near Limavady, was the concluding round of the McGrady Insurance NI Forest Rally Challenge which had already been won by Derek Mackarel and Eamonn Creedon at the penultimate round, Omagh Motor Club’s Bushwhacker Rally.

But there was still plenty to play for on Saturday with the overall event win and several championship class crowns not decided.

And on the day, Tyrone drivers and co-drivers came to the fore with Victoria Bridge’s Jason Mitchell and Ballinamallard’s Caolan McKenna taking the overall victory in their Volkswagen Polo Gti by almost 30 seconds from Jordan and Paul Hone, with Ballygalwey’s Vivian Hamill and Niall Burns taking third overall from Sion Mills pair, Darragh Cairns and Mark Preston, while Castlederg duo, Gareth Sayers and Gareth Gilchrist were fifth.

For Mitchell, it was his second event win of the season after his triump at the Jim Walsh Cork Forest Rally in August and while he admits neither his start on Saturday, nor his year as a whole were ideal, he’s pleased to potentially end it on a high with a start to finish victory.

“It was one of those days that I had no wild preparation but I felt good,” he explained. “The stages were very slippy and I probably didn’t get off to a great start from a driving perspective but it was good enough.

“The stages were unreal, I was really impressed and I think it’s one of those if they could get it run more often the stages would be unreal because the way they changed as the day went on meant you had to change your driving style a couple of times. I was really enjoyable.

“I’ve been tortured with too much on at work – I missed the Lakeland and the Bushwhacker, which really sickened me – so I went to Cam to get a feel for it again because there’s been that much on.

“Hopefully next year will be a bit freeer because it would be nice to build on those couple of good results. This year hasn’t worked out the way I wanted it to but I showed wee snippets of pace during the year.”

Next home was Fivemiletown’s Shane McGirr and his co-driver, Ballygawley’s Denver Rafferty, who sealed sixth overall and first in the two-wheel drive battle in their Lada Riva from the Ford Escort MkII RS1800 of Donaghmore’s Adrian Hetherington and Ronan O’Neill, withCounty Donegal driver Sam Stewart eighth in his Mk II Ford Escort alongside navigator Stephen Peoples.

McGirr’s performance was enough for him to be crowned NI Forest Rally Challenge two-wheel-drive champion, which he adds to the Irish Forest Rally Championship crown he won a few weeks earlier after a consistent season that the Fivemiletown man feels was built more on ‘luck than skill’.

“We had a good enough season, thankfully everything worked out,” he beamed. “We didn’t think it would work like that early on because the first event we did at Fivemiletown, the gearbox packed up so that was a bad start but thankfully it picked up after that.

“It’s more luck than skill but you definitely need a bit of luck in this. In the end up we had a good season with no wild dramas and sometimes we were in the right place at the right time, which is a nice position to be in because we have been the boys having troubles before.

“You have to be at the finish and thankfully we were more often than not and we’ve had a good year.”

Meanwhile, the overall top 10 was rounded out by two Tyrone drivers, with Coagh’s Trevor Ferguson and Strabane’s Anthony Cairns coming home ninth and 10th respectively.

In the class battles, Hetherington won class one from the Mk I Ford Escort of Aughnacloy’s Bryan Jardine and Declan McKenna; Dromore’s Ciaran McCanney and Emmet Quinn were second in class three in his Vauxhall Nova, just behind Eoin Kelly; Stewart and Peoples won class six from Pomeroy’s Raymond Doyle and David Turkington, while Cookstown’s Owen Mallon and Keith Hall were fourth; class eight was a real Tyrone affair with Omagh’s Paul Maguire and co-driver John Henderson winning in their Subaru Impreza from Castlederg’s Robert McKelvey and Declan Campbell, with Omagh’s Richard McCrea and David Kerr third and Bready’s Raymond Gurney and Ruairi O’Neill fourth; Cookstown’s John McBride and Jarlath Kelly won class nine, while Sayers and Gilchrist topped the class 10 standings from Ferguson.

And at the conclusion of the event, Stanley Orr and Graham Henderson, a native of Donemana, won the overall Micra Challenge driver and co-driver titles respectively after finishing 40th overall and fourth in class three ahead of their fellow Nissan drivers, Trillick’s Ben Fallis and Louise McBarron, and Donemana’s Mark Moore and Drumnakilly’s Ryan McAleer.

Full results via rallyscore.net.