McHale top young driver

Motor Sport: Gareth McHale is the Billy Coleman Young Rally Driver of the Year. His received his award this week from Billy Coleman at a Motorsport Ireland reception in the RIAC, Dublin.

Driving a Toyota Corolla WRC, the 25-year-old son of another rallying legend, Austin McHale, was an emphatic winner of the National Forestry Stages Rally Championship, scoring six wins.

He also showed considerable potential in a number of tarmac events, finishing third overall in the first running of Rally Ireland. Along with his award, McHale collected a prize worth 32,000, courtesy of the Irish Sports Council, Motorsport Ireland and their affiliated Rally Clubs, made up of a cheque for 25,000 and the remainder to be used in a driver development programme.

McHale has no definitive plans for next year, apart from driving a Ford Focus WRC in the World Championship Monte Carlo Rally in January. He hopes to compete in more internationals and some selected European rounds of the World Championship.

He is also considering the Junior World Championship as a prelude to contesting the WRC in 2007 - when hopefully Rally Ireland will have world championship status.

Billy Coleman award runners-up Kevin Kelleher (27) and Ian Barrett (24) received 8,000 and €4,000, respectively. Kelleher, a builder from Clonakilty, scored a number of Group N wins and won Carlow CC's Ford Escort Mk.2 challenge event. He will rally a Mitsubishi Evo 9 in 2006, competing in the Galway International and the Mayo Stages, after which he will decide on contesting either the Pirelli Tarmac Championship or the Dunlop National series, as he says he cannot afford to do both.

Barrett, a mechanical engineer from Maynooth, scored a number of class wins this year, and plans to contest the entire Dunlop series in Class 4 in the new year and selected rounds of the Pirelli championship.

There are no Irish motor sport fixtures this weekend, a welcome break indeed after an exceptionally busy year for all branches of the sport.