Marty Gallagher and co-driver Dean O’Sullivan’s first trip to MSA British Rally Championship-Rally Isle Of Man event proved to be a highly rewarding and successful one.

The young Donegal pairing drove a fast and mature event in their Campsie Karting Centre Peugeot 208 R2, to come home a fine eighteenth overall and first in the BRC 4 class. The result also saw them cross the finish line at the TT Grandstand third R2 car home behind Rob Duggan’s Vauxhall Adam, and Norweigan Sindre Furuseth’s Renault Twingo, with a fastest R2 time recorded along the way. Twenty year old Marty, in just his second full season of rallying has now also qualified for the prestigious FIA Celtic Trophy shoot-out in Austria in November.

The only Donegal crew to contest this year’s three day event they started cautiously for the three stages on Thursday night. “We had no real experience of the dark, or of the event, so the plan was to keep in sensible for the first night. It worked out well and on Friday morning we weren’t even too far back from the leaders” said Marty. Day two-Friday was a big day with eleven stages- five of which would be held in darkness. It was to be a great day for the Campsie Karting Centre team, whose fast steady pace saw Marty have no issues and after three stages they were now third R2 car, and pulling away from the factory Vauxhall Adam of Mattias Adielsson. Even despite the measured approach a fastest time in the R2 category on stage six showed the increased overall pace of the Donegal crew on their first Manx foray.

“It was a brilliant rally,and by the second night I really enjoyed those night time stages. I loved the rally and the stages, and it’s all experience for a 2017 MSA British Rally Championship attack. My focus now is on the Irish Tarmac Championship Cork 20 Rally in two weeks, where the class has to be decided. Really Callum Devine would have to non-finish for us to win the category, but second is still a race with William Creighton in his similar 208. That is one thing, but we would also love to contest the FIA Celtic Trophy Shoot-out event- the Rally Waldviertez in November. However we hadn’t budgeted for qualifying for this at the start of the season, so we really need some backing to enable us to compete, said Marty”

The British and Irish Tarmac Rally Championship competition this year has been self funded by the family business, but opportunities are open now for Marty to make a name for himself in front of the cream of Europe and the FIA in Austria but for a backer to get behind one of Ireland’s rising rally talents.

The Austrian event is a mixed surface affair with sixty kilometres on tarmac and eighty-five on gravel, the surface changing during each stage. The two day event requires two ferry trips and over 2800 kilometres each way of travelling, so it’s no easy undertaking.