Donagh Kelly and Kevin Flanagan in a Ford Focus WRC took their first ever international win in the Colm Quinn BMW Galway International Rally 2015.

Finishing with 39.2 seconds to spare over Eugene Donnelly & Paul Kiely in the Mini WRC, it was an extremely impressive and controlled performance from the Donegal / Derry combination on the first round of the Clonakilty Blackpudding Irish Tarmac Rally Championship. They led from Saturday evening when current tarmac champions Declan & Brian Boyle received a three minute road penalty having which dropped them down the order. Sam Moffett & Karl Atkinson in their Fiesta WRC came home third having been narrowly pipped by Donnelly on the final stage and only 0.7 seconds separated them at the end.

Very cold, overcast but dry conditions greeted the field on the opening stage near Ardrahan, and the Boyle cousins continued where they left off last year with a fastest time, some 6.6 seconds quicker than Kelly. Most of the tops crews negotiated the stage without too much drama, except for Dean Raftery. His Mini lapsed into safe mode towards the end of the stage, and although he made service, a 1 minute 45 second of road penalty was picked up.

Boyle hit trouble on stage four when his car failed to start and he ran several numbers down the order, and although he set the fastest time, the threat of road penalties were hanging over him. Kelly was still less than ten seconds behind with Jennings still in third, but by the following stage the Fermanagh drivers rally was over. A gravelly square right caught Jennings out, and the resultant puncture and steering problems mean that too much time was lost and he had to retire. After six stages Boyle led by just over ten seconds from Kelly, with Donnelly and the two Moffetts making up the top five, but road penalties for the late start to stage 4 dropped Boyle back to fifth place, three minutes off the lead.

With eight stages on the Sunday including the Black Road, Lough Cutra and Bradys Yard there was still a lot of rallying to be done. Kelly punched in a quick time over the icy and partly foggy Black Road to extend his lead while Sam Moffett and Donnelly were having a huge struggle for second place. Josh Moffett had 90 seconds to spare ahead of Boyle, Raftery was putting in some very impressive times in sixth while there was a great R5 battle between the Fiesta of Paraic Duffy and the DS3 of Jonny Greer. 

Over the final stages Kelly held his nerve to take his first ever international win after a very solid drive over the weekend. The battle for second place went down to the final stage as Sam Moffett and Donnelly swapped places continuously and the former tarmac champion pulled out all the stops over the last stage to take runner up by just 0.7 seconds. The battle for fourth was as intense with Boyle putting on a late charge in an effort to overtake Josh Moffett who had lost some time with a puncture. Moffett did enough to hang on by just three seconds and take fourth place while Dean Raftery had an excellent first outing in a WRC to come home sixth. Jonny Greer brought his Citroen home in seventh after Paraic Duffy lost over 9 minutes on stage 11 with an ‘off’. Aaron McHale, Brendan Cumiskey and Joe McGonigle rounded off the top ten.

The National rally was very much the Declan Gallagher show as expected with the Starlet driver totally dominating proceedings over the two days. The reigning Modified Champion never let his concentration drop as he won the category with almost two and a half minutes to spare over Mickey Conlons Escort. Liam Howlett had been second until he went off the road on Stage 10, while Pat Kelly was an early retirement with transmission troubles. Cal McCarthy was also a first stage retirement as the national challengers got whittled down early in the event. John Lynch, Stephen Greaney and Declan Wilmott completed the top five in the national rally all driving Mk 2 Escorts with Greaney winning the Brian Thornton Memorial trophy, another firs alon with his co-driver, Kieran Feeney.

The Historic Rally was won with almost a minute to spare by father and son crew Ernie and Will Graham in their Escort on their first championship appearance of the year, while the Junior Rally saw Corks Vincent McSweeney take the win in his Honda Civic by almost a minute from the similar car of Richard Moore.

The action now moves onto the second round in five weeks’ time, the Quality Hotel Clonakilty West Cork Rally which is the first time it has been a counting round of the championship. With so many drivers registering in Galway and most of them gaining some points it promises to be an exciting St. Patricks Weekend in Clonakilty. Another successful Colm Quinn BMW Galway International Rally has come to a close and congratulations must go to Kieran Donohue and his team for a very well organised event that ran on time all weekend.