28 February 2018
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
There are less than three weeks to go to the Quality Hotel Clonakilty West Cork Rally and already over 120 entries have been received for the event with 100 of these in the main field in whats shaping up to be a very competitive rally between some of Ireland top drivers. Donagh Kelly in his Ford Focus WRC will be coming back to attempt to take his fifth successive win. The popular Donegal driver who lists Ardfield as one of his favourite stages in the country will face a challenge from his fellow county man Declan Boyle who has entered his Fiesta WRC as well as current Tarmac Champion Sam Moffett, Robert Barrable and Brendan Cumiskey.
The National rally entry to date is also very strong with Kevin Eves back to defend his win from last year and looking to take the Bones O’Connor Modified Trophy to Donegal again. He will face tough opposition from Wesley Patterson, Adrian Hetherington, Gary Kiernan, Rob Duggan, Kevin Gallagher, Frank Kelly, Cormac Phelan and the returning John Dalton who hasn’t competed in Clonakilty since 2013. As usual there is a lot of interest from the U.K. with regulars such as Wayne & Adrian Evans and Colin Rowe being joined for the first time by Karl Simmons & Martyn England. The Historic Rally has received entries from Owen Murphy, Dewi Bowen, Alan Watkins, Duncan Williams, Neil Williams, Andy Johnson and Martin Freestone to name but a few.
The rally is the opening round of the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship, FIA Celtic Trophy and the PlasticBags.ie Southern 4 Rally Championship which should attract a lot of interest from both championship regulars and clubmen alike. Potential crews wishing to put in an entry are reminded that Cork Motor Club also have the facility to accept payment by credit cards. Further news will be available in the coming week on www.westcorkrally.com and www.corkmotorclub.com.
