Faultless MacHale shows his rivals a clean pair of wheels

GARETH MacHale capped off a faultless weekend by taking the 2010 Safety Direct Galway International Rally. MacHale was consistently quick all weekend and managed to hold off the 20 year-old sensation Craig Breen, who set some astonishing times in the brand new Ford Fiesta S2000.

Aaron MacHale finished third to give the MacHale Family two podium finishes. Aaron went into the last stage trailing Alastair Fisher by nine seconds, but a hard charge saw MacHale take a whopping 15 seconds from Fisher to beat the young Fermanagh man by six seconds. Kevin Barrett had a good showing to round off the top 5.  

Saturday morning’s opening stages threw frost and fog at the competitors. British Rally Champion, Keith Cronin, was first out of the traps to take the first stage, but his rally ended on stage two when his lancer left the road. To the delight of the Galway spectators, Cronin returned to action on the Sunday run, and set some stage winning times.

Cronin was not the only high profile name to retire early on Saturday morning. Fellow Mitsubishi drivers Jonny Greer and Gary Jennings also saw their rally end on day one, but like Cronin, both returned for the Sunday run. The overnight lead was held by Gareth MacHale. The Dubliner had a comfortable cushion of over a minute from Craig Breen, with Tim McNulty a further 30 seconds back.

However McNulty’s charge ended on stage 13 when his gearbox broke. It was hard luck on McNulty who was enjoying a good battle with Breen for second place. Sunday’s stages saw little change in the leaderboard with most crews happy to keep their cars between the stonewalls.

In the end, it was left to MacHale to bring his Focus WRC back to Oranmore in one piece and bag maximum points in the Citroen Irish Tarmac Rally Championship. With both Craig Breen and Alastair Fisher receiving overall awards, the Group N trophy went to Alan Ring and Adrian Deasy in their Munster Joinery Lancer.

The National Rally was a one-horse show all weekend with the young Monaghan duo of Daniel McKenna and Andrew Grennan winning by almost three minutes. Galway also held the first round of the lucrative Citroen Racing Trophy.

Current British C2 champion Marty McCormack was the early leader, but a series of punctures on Sunday handed Dubliner Robert Barrable the win. In the Fiesta Sporting Trophy, Stephen Wright and Paul McGee never put a wheel wrong all weekend and took a comfortable win. Wright and McGee also finished 19th overall to round off a great weekend.

The leading Galway crew were Mike Bird and Kevin Keane who finished an honourable seventh overall in their Subara Impreza, while the Historic section was won by local man Ray Cunningham. Veteran Martin Ward took the post Historic prize. Damien Whiriskey won the junior prize.

After Galway, the focus switches to the legendary Circuit of Ireland rally over the Easter Weekend where MacHale will look to extend his lead in the Championship.