Irish title delight for Kelly father and daughter

MOY’S father and daughter crew of Frank and Lauren Kelly were ‘over the moon’ on Sunday evening after winning the modified Irish Tarmac Rally Championship title for the first time.

Co-driver Lauren had already won her crown at the previous round, but dad Frank, who has enjoyed a glittering career behind the wheel of ‘Baby Blue’, their famed Mk II Ford Escort, still had a lot of work to do in Cork if he was to finally get his hands on the ITRC driver’s crown for the first time.

They faced a do or die battle with Damian Toner on the day, knowing they had to win and keep their nearest rival behind them to achieve their aim and Kelly stole a march on his modified rivals after a brave display of driving on the rain-soaked stages.

A hat-trick of fastest times on Cork 20’s opening loop gave the 58-year-old an 11.9-second lead over Daniel McKenna after stage three. More importantly Kelly was 55.1 seconds ahead of Toner who was down in fifth.

Toner’s Ford Escort Mk2 was struggling with a misfire on Sunday morning while a misted windscreen added insult to injury.

In turn it gave the duo the McEvoy Motorsport Modified ITRC title, their Cork 20 success combining with top scores in Galway and Donegal and while delighted with his latest success, Frank’s pace at the weekend caught even himself by surprise.

“We hit lucky in Galway, we won it, and then I did what I did in West Cork and gave [Baby Blue] a slap and Circuit of Ireland didn’t happen because I had no engine, but we kept picking away, we won three rounds and finished second twice, so it left us in a good position going into the last round, but it was an outside chance because Damien Toner was four points ahead of us and he’s a fantastic competitor,” he said.

“We had to go and win, we couldn’t just finish ahead of Damien, we had to claim top points and I don’t know where that came out of or where we got that speed or how we got those times.

“The conditions were maybe the thing that worked for me because being a gravel man originally I’m comfortable with the car moving about – maybe not aquaplaning at 120mph but I’m comfortable with it not being attached to the ground! Maybe that’s where I got that wee bit of speed that made the difference but I don’t know. I’d love to know, because I’d bottle it and keep it!

“It’s a dream come true, I’m over the moon.”

As happy as Frank is with his ITRC title success, the likelihood is he won’t be back next year to defend it as he will go back to competing at chosen events, many overseas, rather than entire championships for the foreseeable future.

“My days of chasing championships are definitely over now. That was my last one! It’s not my last rally but it’s my last championship,” he confirmed.

“I haven’t intentionally gone after a championship since 2014, so it’s 10 years. We got the opportunity to go abroad to Trinidad in 2014 and that snowballed into all the other events that we have done abroad.

“You can’t do foreign events and a championship at home, so I never thought about it again until the beginning of this year when the Irish Tarmac Championship, which is the one championship I’ve never won, a good friend of mine, Sean Hayde from Clonakilty, he became registrar and he poked and he prodded and he pushed and he pushed until I eventually signed up for it.”

The Kellys will be back in action in a few weeks when they travel to San Marino for the annual Rally Legend event.