McGirr and Rafferty’s Lada proves no joke

WHEN I was growing up, Lada jokes were a thing.

There were some crackers, one of the best being ‘What do you call a Lada with a sunroof? A skip!’, while another was ‘What do you call a Lada on top of a hill? A miracle!’

That shows the regard the Russian manufacturer was held, but after the weekend’s results there will be no more laughing at Ladas, particularly not the one piloted by Fivemiletown’s Shane McGirr and co-driven by Ballygawley’s Denver Rafferty.

That pair managed to propel their Honda Integra Type R-engined Lada Riva to a stunning seventh overall and first in the two-wheel-drive standings at the Grizedale Stages Rally in the Lake District.

Their blue Riva may look like a Lada on the outside, if you ignore the hood scoop, but it certainly doesn’t sound like or move like the stereotypical Ladas of years gone by.

It was probably the noisiest car in action in the Lake District last weekend, with its 290 horse power two-litre engine reverberating through the tree-lined gravel stages, leaving spectators bewildered as they expected a beast of an Audi Quattro or a Sierra Cosworth to come barrelling past only for them to be left rubbing their eyes in disbelief as McGirr and Rafferty’s Lada Riva drifted around corners and sprayed dirt in the faces of anyone who mocked their arrival pre event.

To say the Tyrone pair may not have been taken entirely seriously before the rally because of their choice of vehicle might not be far off the mark as they were seeded 55th on the road, but by the end of the first day they were lying 11th so the organisers had to swiftly move them up the road almost as quickly as the pair were covering ground.

And they maintained that pace until the end of the event when they finished well inside the top 10 and top of the two-wheel-drive performers, much to McGirr’s joyous disbelief.

“It was surprising!,” he beamed after a stunning run in the machine that was built for fun more than anything.

He continued: “I don’t think they expected it to do what it did at the weekend and when I built it myself I didn’t but it’s nice to see something different and the amount of people coming over to say that was incredible.

“When I was building it, I was building it for a bit of fun. I’ve done my day of racing, I’ve raced the Frank Kelly’s, the Adrian Hetherington’s, all those fast guys, but now I want to have a bit of fun and a bit of craic and I thought ‘if she’s competitive, great, that’s a bonus, and if she’s not I don’t really care’.

“But it was a bit strange seeing us sitting at the finish of Grizedale and five or 10 R5s sitting behind us! She looked out of place,” McGirr chuckled.

While there won’t be many questioning the Fivemiletown manr’s choice of car after the weekend’s result, McGirr admits there were plenty beforehand, but that he was never going to be put off, having wanted one for many years.

“There were a lot of people who thought ‘what are you doing?’,” he explained.

“Good friends of my own asked ‘what has happened to you?’ They were asking what I was building that piece of scrap for, but I used to work in Derrygonnelly Autos 30 years ago, more maybe, and I just had a fascination about the old things, I loved them.

“They just got a bad name, wrongly I might add. Those old things are not what they are made out to be – they were that ugly there were nice! ”

Meanwhile, Killyclogher’s Niall McCullagh and Ryan McCloskey had led the event but had to retire in the Lake District, But Ballygawley’s Vivian Hamill and Lorcan Moore were fifth in their Volkswagen Polo R5, Galbally’s Darren Hamill and Martin Harte were 13th in their Ford Fiesta R5 and Strabane’s Bob Riddles and Ian Kidd were 33rd in their Mk II Ford Escort.

Elsewhere, in a more popular and plentiful Mk II Ford Escort, Dromore’s Cathan McCourt was in action at the iconic Killarney Historic Rally where he finished an impressive third overall with Liam Moynihan on the notes.

The battle at the front was mainly between Jonny Greer and World Rally Championship star Craig Breen in a pair of Ford Sierra Cosworths, but McCourt was in the mix from the off, being only 1.6 seconds down on Breen through Molls Gap.

A big moment in Ballaghbeama caused the Tyrone man to lose ground as he decided to ease off for a period. Unfortunately he then made contact with a bale and spun his Escort on Kilgobnet, dropping him down to fifth.

But he battled back with a sensational fastest time over Molls Gap as he went on full attack mode and those efforts over the final stages were enough to propel him and co-drive Moynihan onto the podium.

Meanwhile, another Dromore pilot, Hugh McQuaid and co-driver Martin Byrne, brought their Mk II Ford Escort home 16th overall and third in class K.