Paul Manton at Footmans - Donie O'Sullivan overcame Stage 3 puncture - Donie O'Sullivan at Footmans -

Pat McDonagh's sideways Cortina Mk2 - Jason O'Mahony at Footmans - Wesley Patterson very sideways

John Dalton on his way to second overall - Paul Nagle, Brian O'Connel (COC) Donie O'Sullivan

Phil Collins highest at Footmans - Pre event favourite Stephen Murphy - Donie and family celebrate

Quality Hotels West Cork Rally 2008 Press Release 4

Introduction

The Quality Hotels West Cork Rally reached a significant milestone over St.Patricks Weekend as it celebrated its 30th running. Based in Clonakilty Co.Cork as usual, this year the rally was the opening round of the 023 Tiles Southern 4 Rally Championship & the 2008 Rallysport Cup. The event also counted for rounds 1&2 of the C2 R2 Irish Cup and the second round of the Irish Mitsubishi Evolution Challenge. Modified cars weren’t forgotten either as the Bones O’Connor Modified Challenge Trophy was up for grabs too with a very strong entry of Darrians and Escorts. 151 cars were to start in the main field with 20 historics joining in on the fifth stage. The juniors were to take part in the last five stages of the rally.
With top seed Melvyn Evans having withdrawn his entry the week before, it was left to Stephen Murphy / M.J.Morrissey with number 2 on their door to lead the field away in their Impreza WRC S12b. They were followed in turn by Donie O’Sullivan / Paul Nagle and Liam McCarthy / Kieran Murphy in their Impreza WRC and Corolla WRC respectively. Inaugural winners of the modified challenge in 2007 John Dalton / Gwynfor Jones were at 5 in their Darrian T90 GTR followed by Phil Collins / Derek Brannigan in their red Mk2 Escort. Leading Evo Challengers Colm Murphy / Ger Loughrey and Owen Murphy / James O’Brien were next up in their Evo 9s. Bob Fowden and Conor McCloskey were to be at 9 & 10 but both had to withdraw, so J.J.Fleming / Robbie Ward in their Focus WRC were next up. Alan Ring / Adrian Deasy were at 12 in their Evo 9, while Kevin O’Donoghue / Joe O’Leary at 14 rounded off the top ten starters. Martin Laverty / Trevor Payne and Marty McCormack / Liam Moynihan were the top seeded C2 R2 competitors at numbers 75 & 76 respectively. There were a total of 17 stages over the two days, with eight stages on the Saturday and nine on the Sunday. Service was centralised in Darrara Agricultural College for the two days while there were 155 stage miles to 112 road miles making the event excellent value for money.

Day 1

Heavy rain and saturated roads greeted the drivers as the cars took to the start of the first stage. Stephen Murphy found the going difficult and after a spin and a stall on Stage 1 lost 25 seconds to Donie O’Sullivan. Liam McCarthy was penalised for a jump start and lost 30 seconds. Colm Murphy went into second place immediately while Phil Collins held third despite conditions being very unfavourable towards two wheel drive. Adrien Heatherington was flying in the awful conditions and was using his forestry expertise to good effect. Washington James was off the road for around 90 seconds while Ashley Field was very rusty after a long lay off from rallying. Kevin O’Donoghue was complaining of bad handling in his Escort as Wesley Patterson almost caught up with him on the first stage. On Stage two came the first real drama, the retirement of Stephen Murphy. Running first on the road the conditions took their toll and he went off the road early on the stage damaging the front of the car. Although he made it to the end of the stage, the car was too damaged to continue. The car was fixed up overnight and Stephen went out as a 00 to get some more testing done.
Stage three and four brought more drama as the bad conditions were compounded by petrol on the road all through the stage. Donie O’Sullivan lost 30 seconds with a puncture, while Phil Collins went off the road and damaged an oil pipe but was able to continue. Owen Murphy also collected a puncture and when he stopped to change it the jack wouldn’t work with the result almost six minutes were lost. J.J.Fleming slid off the road and out of the rally. Colm Murphy was fastest on stage 3 to go into an eight second lead, but O’Sullivan fought back on Stage 4 to retake a lead he was never to lose. Pat Donegan also went off the road for a while and Guy Woodcock lost four minutes with a puncture on this loop and dropped down the leaderboard while mechanical problems forced Kevin O’Donoghue out at service.
With the roads drying and summer-like conditions appearing John Dalton began to up the pace and move into fourth place in his Darrian which was revelling on the drier roads. James Stafford was also beginning to move up the leaderboard as the Darrians began to make their power / weight ratio tell. O’Sullivan still led from Colm Murphy with Liam McCarthy making no impression on the leading two in third place. Neil Williams and Wesley Patterson were in a battle for fifth place as the action got fast and furious. Owen Murphy had a big off on stage 5 as a result of braking problems which necessitated his removal to hospital as a precaution. He was later released none the worse for his experience. Brian O’Mahony had a puncture and lost some more time.
On the final pair of stages of the day, Donie O’Sullivan lost fifth gear and had to back off a little to avoid damaging the car but was still able to maintain his lead over Colm Murphy who was comfortably leading the Evo Challenge. Liam McCarthy was overtaken for third place by John Dalton who set an amazing fastest time on the last stage of the day as he really got the Darrian wound up. Wesley Patterson was in fifth despite some worries over the diff with James Stafford up to 6th overall. Alan Ring held seventh in his Lancer with Neil Williams, Gwyndaf Evans and Conor Curley making up the top ten overnight. In the C2 R2 Cup, Marty McCormack took full points in the first round. Tommy Mason won the Historic Rally in his Mk1 Escort while Noel Kelleher won the Junior Rally in his Honda Civic.

Overnight Top 5
1 – Donie O’Sullivan / Paul Nagle – Subaru Impreza WRC – 1:04:06.0
2 – Colm Murphy / Ger Loughrey – Mitsubishi Lancer Evo – 1:04:20.0
3 – John Dalton / Gwynfor Jones – Darrian T90 GTR – 1:05:15.4
4 – Liam McCarthy / Kieran Murphy – Toyota Corolla WRC – 1:05:16.3
5 – Wesley Patterson / Ruth Guest – Ford Escort – 1:06:38.2

Day 2
Dull, misty weather greeted the drivers as they started the second day and in two stages Donie O’Sullivan put the hammer down to stretch his lead from 14 to 48 seconds. Despite the greasy conditions Dalton was able to pull further away from McCarthy, while Stafford had overtaken Patterson for fifth. Conor Curley crashed out on the first junction of stage nine, with the car landing a long way off the road inside in a river, thankfully with out injury to the crew. This moved Pat Donegan up the leaderboard but only for a short time as he too crashed out on stage 11. Phil Collins was back inside the top ten after his mishaps of the previous day.
After the second loop of the morning stages O’Sullivan was able to relax a little to conserve the car. Murphy was all alone in second place and comfortably leading the Evo challenge part of the event. Dalton & McCarthy were still having a battle for third place while Stafford was in fifth. Patterson was coming under increasing pressure from Ring to hold onto sixth place. Terence O’Shaughnessy was well inside the top 20 in his 1600 Corolla and mixing it very well with the much more powerful Escorts and Darrians. Collins suffered a puncture and lost some time while Stafford had some mechanical problems with the car.
The classic Ring stage was stage 13 and it proved to be very unlucky for Colm Murphy who crashed into the wall after the harbour in Ring village and out of the event. This promoted Alan Carmichael to the lead in the Evo Challenge which he was to hold until the end. Dalton was now in second but still coming under pressure from McCarthy. Stafford was now if fourth place with Alan Ring in fifth ahead of Wesley Patterson. Gwyndaf Evans retired from a top ten position just before Ring village ending a fine drive as the car just stopped and refused to fire up again.
More drama was to follow on the following stage in Dunworley as Neil Williams crashed after a jump and vacated seventh place to Phil Collins who still wasn’t giving up. After this sudden flurry of events things seemed to settle down once more as drivers realised that the end of a long tough event was in sight and nothing more was to be gained by pushing too hard. Donie O’Sullivan extended his lead to over two minutes as John Dalton increased his lead on Liam McCarthy.
There were no more mishaps and Donie O’Sullivan and Paul Nagle safely negotiated the final spectator stage in Clonakilty to claim their second victory on this event. John Dalton and Gwynfor Jones took their best West Cork Rally result to date with a superb second overall. Liam McCarthy and Kieran Murphy were third with James Stafford and Frank Dwyer fourth in the Darrian. Alan Ring and Adrian Deasy came fifth overall and won Gp N in their Evo 9. Wesley Patterson, Sean Flanagan, Adrien Heatherington, Edward O’Callaghan and Washington James completed the top ten. Alan Carmichael won the Irish Evo Challenge while Barry Evans won round 2 of the C2 R2 Irish Cup after Marty McCormack went off the road on Stage 12.
Once again the Quality Hotels West Cork Rally was a hard and challenging event that was enjoyed by competitors and spectators alike. Considering the toughness of the event, the fact that 88 of the 151 starters made it to finish was a surprise. Credit must go to Brian O’Connell (who was clerking the event for the final time) and his team who made sure the event ran on time all weekend.

Overall Top 5
1 – Donie O’Sullivan / Paul Nagle – Subaru Impreza WRC – 2:11:15.9
2 – John Dalton / Gwynfor Jones – Darrian T90 GTR – 2:13:39.9
3 – Liam McCarthy / Kieran Murphy – Toyota Corolla WRC – 2:14:13.5
4 – James M.Stafford / Frank Dwyer – Darrian T90 GTR – 2:16:43.2
5 – Alan Ring / Adrian Deasy – Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9 – 2:16:59.3

Kevin O’Driscoll.