Motor Sport News round-up: Clongowes Wood College will be represented in two British motor racing championships this year - by ex-pupil Charlie Donnelly (20) and Leaving Certificate student Ronayne O'Mahony (17).
Donnelly has impressed in pre-season testing at Brands Hatch,Rockingham and Snetterton.
He drives for Comtec, the works Van Diemen team, in the Avon Junior division of the British Formula Ford Zetec Championship, with support from Des Donnelly Cars and Killashee House Hotel, Naas.
The first round will be at Mondello Park on Easter Monday, which is the Naas driver's local track, where his father, Des, scored notable saloon and Formula Atlantic race wins.
Young Donnolly said: "My aim is to win the Avon Junior series and also to pick up the £10,000 on offer to the first junior to win a race outright".
O'Mahony has signed with Fortec Motorsport to contest the British Formula Renault Championship. He has been racing karts since he was nine.
He won 17 Irish races last year and had three podium finishes in the highly competitive Formula A class in the UK.
"I am looking forward to the season in Formula Renault with Fortec, even though I have already had to miss as many as 21 days testing because of studies," O'Mahony said. "The Leaving Certificate is important and I owe it to my teachers at Clongowes and my parents to give it my best. But after that I hope to dedicate all my efforts to racing full time and being a competitive member of the Fortec team."
His first of 13 races will be at Snetterton at Easter, followed by more championship rounds at Brands Hatch, Thruxton and then at Silverstone - during the same week he finishes his final examinations.
Morgan Dempsey Jnr and Kieran Dynes are the latest challengers in the Dunlop Supercar Championship, which starts at Mondello at Easter. Dempsey won the Formula Opel Championship in 1991, but the invariable lack of a proper budget prevented him from furthering his career abroad. He will mount a major challenge in the Dunlop series at the wheel of Kevin Keenan's KTK racing saloon prepared by Cliff Dempsey Racing.
After nine years, Dungannon's Dynes has stepped back from the American oval racing scene to race on the Irish circuits for the first time. His car will be run by Ken Bolger Motorsport.
Ford Escort drivers Phillip Shaw and Conor Curley are the two top seeds in Sunday's Sligo Stage Rally. Aidan Caddye is seeded third in a Honda Civic, ahead of escort drivers Shaun Murphy, Alastair Hetherington, Gerry Smyth, Michael McColgan and Gary Keenan.
FIXTURES
Saturday: Munster MC & CC, Navigation Trial, starts Coolcower House, Macroom, Co Cork, midnight.
Sunday: Connacht MC, Stage Rally, starts Sligo Racecourse, 9.15a.m.; MEC, Circuit of Wicklow Forestry Rally, starts Coach House, Roundwood, Co Wicklow, 10.30; Galway MC, Sprint, Tynagh, Portumna, Co Galway, 10.30; Co Cavan MC,Autocross, Quarry off Ballybay-Cootehill Rd, Cavan, 11.
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