Mondello plays host to Jordan

Mondello Park will reverberate to the victorious sound of a B&H Jordan Formula One racing car on Sunday when David Kennedy fires up the Mugen Honda V10 engine to do some demo laps at the Esat Digifone Leinster Trophy meeting.

The Dublin driver will not be out to break lap records, but rather to give the home fans a real flavour of Formula One. The demonstration is scheduled for 3.35 p.m., after the Formula Vee and Formula Ford Zetec championship races, and before the Esat Digifone Leinster Trophy feature race.

Appropriately, the appearance of the Jordan Formula One car marks the 21st anniversary of Eddie Jordan's Leinster Trophy race win.

Leinster Trophy race winners who went on to win world championships are Mike Hawthorn, winner at Wicklow in 1951, and Ayrton Senna, Mondello winner in 1982. Reigning world champion Mika Hakkinen was the race winner in 1988. Current Formula One drivers who have competed in the Leinster Trophy are B&H Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen, winner of this year's French and Italian Grands Prix, and Rubens Barrichello, who will partner Michael Schumacher in Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro next year.

Twenty-five cars will line up on the grid for the Esat Digifone-sponsored 57th Leinster Trophy, headed by EFDA Euroseries leader Thomas Scheckter, son of the 1979 Formula One World Champion Jody Scheckter of South Africa. The two penultimate rounds of the Euroseries (for the former Formula Opel cars) will be held at Mondello, the first race tomorrow.

Scheckter leads on 227 points from Britain's Darren Malkin on 214, both way ahead of Brazilian Carlos Domingos (164) and Paul Edwards of the USA (161). Edwards drives for the Irish-owned Meritus Team and was the recent race winner at Nurburgring in Germany, in which 19-year-old Michael Keohane of Clonakilty was a superb 5th.

Keohane is quietly confident of putting up a good performance at Mondello: "my target is to finish both races on the podium," he said.

Newly-crowned Irish champion Vivion Daly, promising fellow Dublin driver Gavin Smith and New Ross farmer Philip Kehoe will put the pressure on Keohane and no doubt on many of the Euroseries regulars. Keohane is the only Irish driver registered to score Euro points.

In addition to all the National Championship classes, and super quick Crossle 9S sports cars, the two-day meeting will also feature races for the spectacular sidecars, with kart races for the cadet and junior classes tomorrow only.

Meanwhile, Eamonn Boland and Pete Doughty in Ford Escort WRC's lead off a quality field in this weekend's 28th Wexford Rally.

Dublin teenager Raymond Tolan won the under-18 class in the recent international four-day junior Trila De La Creuse in France, beating British rider Martin Hayles and Francois Chalayer of France. Tolan was 20th overall in the Senior Class Two. On his return home he won the Senior Class of the TORC Blackwater Enduro.