Kelly and ‘Baby Blue’ are heading ‘Down Under’

FRANK Kelly and ‘Baby Blue’ are heading Down Under in May when they will tackle the second round of the Australian Rally Championship, the Forest Rally, which is also on the Western Australian Rally Championship calendar.

The Moy man, his wife Rosemarie, co-driver daughter Lauren and their faithful Mk II Ford Escort have taken up the invitation from Trillick native, Gary Mills, who reached out to Kelly around Christmas to tempt him to the other side of the world in a bid to raise the profile of rallying in the Perth area and Australia as a whole.

“It’s something I’ve thought about for quite a while and at Christmas time I thought ‘I’ll touch base with Frank to see what he wants,” Mills explained.

“From my point of view out here, it is to give back to the sport I’ve been doing for so long. The coverage of the sport over here is very limited so I think Frank coming is going to be amazing and just before that news was announced, it was announced that Hayden Paddon [ex-WRC competitor] has signed up to do the [Australian] championship, so it’s all falling together nicely.

“It should bring a lot of hype and hopefully bring a few two-wheel-drive men out. It seems to have got a big following at this end following the announcement. It’s all about raising the profile of the sport.

“He said it was on his list for many years but hadn’t figured out how to make it happen so when I contacted him he said ‘let’s make it happen’ and here we are! We’re so excited to be getting Frank to come to Perth.”

Having won the Modified Irish Tarmac Rally Championship last year, Kelly was considering selling ‘Baby Blue’ this year as the car doesn’t meet the new rules to compete in this country, but the decision to head to Australia where he plans to compete at least twice in 2025, have given the famous car a stay of execution and possibly a new lease of life in a new competition.

And while he initially commited to competing in the Western Australian round of the Australian Rally Championship, Frank admits he could do more after also signing up to race in the Adelaide Hills Rally in South Australia in October.

“It’s going to be round by round because this all came together in just three weeks!,” Frank explained.

“Gary Mills got in touch with me to see if I’d be interested in doing a rally in Australia – that Perth rally is his local rally there – and it quickly snowballed.

“The next thing we were booking containers, looking at flights and undertaking a real race to prepare the car because I was selling one of the cars. But now that has all been put on the back burner for a year.

“Truth be known, it’s a relief not to have to go down that route and go to Australia instead!”

At present, Kelly and Mills are involved in something of a race against time to get ‘Baby Blue’ to Perth as not only does the car need built, but it needs to be in a container and on a ship no later than the end of this month in order for it to complete its two month journey by sea to Australia where it will then have to sit for a week or two before it’s cleared by customs.

Should everything fall into place, Kelly will take to the start line in Busselton for the Forest Rally where he will thrill fans with his usual flamboyant driving style on their red dirt stages and Mills hopes he can convince his compatriot to stay out west for a bit longer.

“I’d like him to do another round of the WA Championship here. We have options and we have discussed it, but it all depends on when he can come back and forth,” he added.

“My thought would be he will already have done two days on the gravel here so he will have a feel for it and the next round is super, super fast which will suit him and how his car is geared. Hopefully we can get him to do that!”

The experience of competing in Australia won’t be new to Frank, however, as he he and wife Rosemarie lived in the country in 1990 and he completed a successful stint behind the wheel there in 2017, when he finished sixth overall in the Adelaide Hills Rally and topped the Classic Cup in the Lightforce Rally SA.

And he will find himself back in South Australia later in the year on the back of his visit to Perth, which could also open doors to other events in the vast country.

“Funny enough, the first person to touch base with me was a sponsor who supported us out there [in 2017], David McDonagh and their South Australia round of the ARC is towards the end of the year, around October time, and within three minutes it was a done deal and we’re supposed to be doing it now too,” Frank added.

“Obviously there is a big gap between Perth in May and Adelaide in October so we’ll try to maybe get over to the east coast to do some of the rounds but I need to get backing for them.”

Frank is also hoping to compete in West Cork over the St Patrick’s Day weekend in his second car before it will be all systems go for Western Australia’s Forest Rally, which takes place in and around Nannup and Busselton on 23-25 May.