The big guns of Irish rallying will duel for points this weekend in the Killarney Rally of The Lakes, which is the opening round of the Tarmac Rally Championship. And the winner is sure to come from the top seeds. Last year's winner Ian Greer and Andrew Nesbitt will go flat out from the start, which could well be their undoing. I fancy Austin McHale, "the old dog for the hard road", and no one knows the mountain roads of Kerry and west Cork better than the man from Rathcoole.
Tipperary's Frank Meagher will push his Escort WRC to the limit and more, but McHale's more modern Toyota Ireland Corolla WRC will have the edge when it comes to split seconds on the stages. "Nesbitt's going to be hard to beat," said McHale. No doubt Nesbitt is thinking the same way about McHale!
The rally starts from Killarney's Glen Eagle Hotel tomorrow and Sunday at 9.0 a.m. with Molls Gap the opening stage on both days, and also the last stage on Sunday. Massive security, safety and crowd control plans have been put in place to avoid the mayhem witnessed at the Galway Rally in recent years, and Mike Marshall, Clerk of The Course, has issued a stern warning: "if you step out of line you should be prepared to be hit hard and hit often, on the way here (to Killarney), while here and on the way home." Tough talking but he means it, and let's hope his words will be heard loud and clear.
Irish drivers compete abroad at the weekend. Donegal's Damien Faulkner, winner of the opening round of the Formula Palmer Audi European Championship at Donington, will contest two rounds at Brands Hatch on Monday. Dublin drivers Michael Cullen and Paddy Shovlin will race in the first round of the prestigious Ferrari Challenge series at the daunting Spa Francorchamps circuit, the venue for the Belgian Grand Prix, where saloon racing expert Cullen reckons his Ferrari 360 Modena will reach speeds of up to 175mph.
The two-day meeting at Mondello Park features the Irish Formula Vee Festival (Monday), and also rounds of the Formula Europa and Dunlop RT2000 championships.
A full grid of Crossle 9S sports racing cars led by Arnie Black is sure to outshine the racing and saloon cars for noise and colour, and some pretty closing racing too.
Tomorrow the Irish motorcycle road racing season literally roars into action only three miles from the centre of Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in the Cookstown 100 Races, first held in 1922. Reigning senior champion John Donnan, veterans Joey and Robert Dunlop, Richard Britton, Adrian Archibald, Gary Dynes and Denis McCullough will be revving up for the International North-West 200 on Saturday week, for which practise starts this coming Tuesday.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)